A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

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with them certain alliances against me and my country, whilst making themlarge offers to my prejudice. Of what is yours, sir, you may disposeaccording to your pleasure; but it seems to me that you might do betterthan wish to take from my hands what is mine, in order to give it to theEnglish or to any other foreign nation. I pray you, therefore, sir, ifsuch overtures have been made by your people, to be pleased not toconsent thereto in any way, but to put a stop to the whole, to the endthat I may remain your most humble servant, as I desire to be."

Louis returned no answer to this letter. He contented him-self withsending to the commission of thirty-six notables, then in session atEtampes for the purpose of considering the reform of the kingdom, arequest to represent to the Count of Charolais the impropriety of suchlanguage, and to appeal for the punishment of the persons who hadsuggested it to him. The count made some awkward excuses, at the sametime that he persisted in complaining of the king's obstinate pretensionsand underhand ways. A serious incident now happened, which for a whiledistracted the attention of the two rivals from their mutualrecriminations. Duke Philip the Good, who had for some time past beenvisibly declining in body and mind, was visited at Bruges by a stroke ofapoplexy, soon discovered to be fatal. His son, the Count of Charolais,was at Ghent. At the first whisper of danger he mounted his horse, andwithout a moment's halt arrived at Bruges on the 15th of June, 1467, andran to his father's room, who had already lost speech and consciousness."Father, father," cried the count, on his knees and sobbing, "give meyour blessing; and if I have offended you, forgive me." "My lord," addedthe Bishop of Bethlehem, the dying man's confessor, "if you only hear us,bear witness by some sign." The duke turned his eyes a little towardshis son, and seemed to feebly press his hand. This was his last effortof life; and in the evening, after some hours of passive agony, he died.His son flung himself upon the bed: "He shrieked, he wept, he wrung hishands," says George Chatelain, one of the aged duke's oldest and mosttrusted servants, "and for many a long day tears were mingled with allhis words every time he spoke to those who had been in the service of thedead, so much so that every one marvelled at his immeasurable grief; ithad never heretofore been thought that he could feel a quarter of thesorrow he showed, for he was thought to have a sterner heart, whatevercause there might have been; but nature overcame him." Nor was it to hisson alone that Duke Philip had been so good and left so many grounds forsorrow. "With you we lose," was the saying amongst the crowd thatfollowed the procession through the streets, "with you we lose our goodold duke, the best, the gentlest, the friendliest of princes, our peaceand eke our joy! Amidst such fearful storms you at last brought us outinto tranquillity and good order; you set justice on her seat and gavefree course to commerce. And now you are dead, and we are orphans!"Many voices, it is said, added in a lower tone, "You leave us in handswhereof the weight is unknown to us; we know not into what perils we maybe brought by the power that is to be over us, over us so accustomed toyours, under which we, most of us, were born and grew up."

What the people were anxiously forecasting, Louis foresaw with certainty,and took his measures accordingly. A few days after the death of Philipthe Good, several of the principal Flemish cities, Ghent first and thenLiege, rose against the new Duke of Burgundy in defence of theirliberties, already ignored or threatened. The intrigues of Louis werenot unconnected with these solicitations. He would undoubtedly have beenvery glad to have seen his most formidable enemy beset, at the verycommencement of his ducal reign, by serious embarrassments, and obligedto let the king of France settle without trouble his differences with hisbrother Duke Charles of Berry, and with the Duke of Brittany. But thenew Duke of Burgundy was speedily triumphant over the Flemishinsurrections; and after these successes, at the close of the year 1467,he was so powerful and so unfettered in his movements, that Louis might,with good reason, fear the formation of a fresh league amongst his greatneighbors in coalition against him, and perhaps even in communicationwith the English, who were ever ready to seek in France allies for thefurtherance of their attempts to regain there the fortunes wrested fromthem by Joan of Arc and Charles VII. In view of such a position Louisformed a resolution, unpalatable, no doubt, to one so jealous of his ownpower, but indicative of intelligence and boldness; he confronted thedifficulties of home government in order to prevent perils from without.The remembrance had not yet faded of the energy displayed and theservices rendered in the first part of Charles VII.'s reign by thestates-general; a wish was manifested for their resuscitation; and theywere spoken of, even in the popular doggerel, as the most effectualremedy for the evils of the period.

"But what says Paris?"--"She is deaf and dumb."

"Dares she not speak?"--"Nor she, nor parliament."

"The clergy?"--"O! the clergy are kept mum."

"Upon your oath?"--"Yes, on the sacrament."

"The nobles, then?"--"The nobles are still worse."

"And justice?"--"Hath nor balances nor weights."

"Who, then, may hope to mitigate this curse?"

"Who? prithee, who?"--"Why, France's three estates."

"Be pleased, O prince, to grant alleviation . . ."

"To whom?"--"To the good citizen who waits . . ."

"For what?"--"The right of governing the nation . . ."

"Through whom? pray, whom?"--"Why, France's three estates."

In the face of the evil Louis felt no fear of the remedy. He summonedthe states-general to a meeting at Tours on the 1st of April, 1468.Twenty-eight lords in person, besides representatives of several otherswho were unable to be there themselves, and a hundred and ninety-twodeputies elected by sixty-four towns, met in session. The chancellor,Juvenal des Ursins, explained, in presence of the king, the object of themeeting: "It is to take cognizance of the differences which have arisenbetween the king and Sir Charles, his brother, in respect of the duchy ofNormandy and the appanage of the said Sir Charles; likewise the greatexcesses and encroachments which the Duke of Brittany hath committedagainst the king by seizing his places and subjects, and making open warupon him; and thirdly, the communication which is said to be kept up bythe Duke of Brittany with the English, in order to bring them down uponthis country, and hand over to them the places he doth hold in Normandy.Whereupon we are of opinion that the people of the three estates shouldgive their good advice and council." After this official programme, theking and his councillors withdrew. The estates deliberated during sevenor eight sessions, and came to an agreement "without any opposition ordifficulty whatever, that as touching the duchy of Normandy it ought notto and cannot be separated from the crown in any way whatsoever, but mustremain united, annexed, and conjoined thereto inseparably. Further, anyarrangement of the Duke of Brittany with the English is a thing damnable,pernicious, and of most evil consequences, and one which is not to bepermitted, suffered, or tolerated in any way. Lastly, if Sir Charles,the Duke of Brittany, or others, did make war on the king our sovereignlord, or have any treaty or connection with his enemies, the king isbound to proceed against them who should do so, according to what must bedone in such case for the tranquillity and security of the realm. . . . And as often soever as the said cases may occur, the peopleof the estates have agreed and consented, do agree and consent, that,without waiting for other assemblage or congregation of the estates, theking have power to do all that comports with order and justice; the saidestates promising and agreeing to serve and aid the king touching thesematters, to obey him with all their might, and to live and die with himin this quarrel."

Louis XI. himself could demand no more. Had they been more experiencedand far-sighted, the states-general of 1468 would not have been disposedto resign, even temporarily, into the hands of the kingship, their rightsand their part in the government of the country; but they showedpatriotism and good sense in defending the integrity of the kingdom,national unity, and public order against the selfish ambition anddisorderly violence of feudalism.

Fortified by their burst of attachment, Louis, by the treaty of Ancenis,signed on the 10th of September, 1468, put an end to his differences withFrancis II., Duke of Brittany, who gave up his alliance with the house ofBurgundy, and undertook to prevail upon Duke Charles of France to acceptan arbitration for the purpose of settling, before two years were over,the question of his territorial appanage in the place of Normandy. Inthe meanwhile a pension of sixty thousand livres was to be paid by thecrown to that prince. Thus Louis was left with the new duke, Charles ofBurgundy, as the only adversary he had to face. His advisers weredivided as to the course to be taken with this formidable vassal. Was heto be dealt with by war or by negotiation? Count de Dampmartin, Marshalde Rouault, and nearly all the military men earnestly advised war."Leave it to us," they said: "we will give the king a good account ofthis Duke of Burgundy. Plague upon it! what do these Burgundians mean?They have called in the English and made alliance with them in order togive us battle; they have handed over the country to fire and sword; theyhave driven the king from his lordship. We have suffered too much; wemust have revenge; down upon them, in the name of the devil, down uponthem. The king makes a sheep of himself and bargains for his wool andhis skin, as if he had not wherewithal to defend himself. 'Sdeath! ifwe were in his place, we would rather risk the whole kingdom than letourselves be treated in this fashion." But the king did not like to riskthe kingdom; and he had more confidence in negotiation than in war. Twoof his principal advisers, the constable De St. Pol and the cardinal Dela Balue, Bishop of Evreux, were of his opinion, and urged him to the topof his bent. Of them he especially made use in his more or less secretrelations with the Duke of Burgundy; and he charged them to sound himwith respect to a personal interview between himself and the duke. Ithas been very well remarked by M. de Barante, in his _Histoire des Duesde Bourgogne,_ that "Louis had a great idea of the influence he gainedover people by his wits and his language; he was always convinced thatpeople never said what ought to be said, and that they did not set towork the right way." It was a certain way of pleasing him to give himpromise of a success which he would owe to himself alone; and theconstable and the cardinal did not fail to do so. They found the Duke ofBurgundy very little disposed to accept the king's overtures. "By St.George," said he, "I ask nothing but what is just and reasonable; Idesire the fulfilment of the treaties of Arras and of Conflans to whichthe king has sworn. I make no war on him; it is he who is coming to makeit on me; but should he bring all the forces of his kingdom I will notbudge from here or recoil the length of my foot. My predecessors haveseen themselves in worse plight, and have not been dismayed." Neitherthe constable De St. Pol nor the cardinal De la Balue said anything tothe king about this rough disposition on the part of Duke Charles; theyboth in their own personal interest desired the interview, and did notcare to bring to light anything that might be an obstacle to it. Louispersisted in his desire, and sent to ask the duke for a letter ofsafe-conduct. Charles wrote with his own hand, on the 8th of October,1468, as follows:--

"My lord, if it is your pleasure to come to this town of Peronne for to see us, I swear to you and promise you, by my faith and on my honor, that you may come, remain, sojourn, and go back safely to the places of Chauny and Noy on, at your pleasure, as many times as it may please you, freely and frankly, without any hinderance to you or to any of your folks from me or others in any case whatever and whatsoever may happen."

[Illustration: Charles the Rash----203]

When this letter arrived at Noyon, extreme surprise and alarm weredisplayed about Louis; the interview appeared to be a mad idea; thevicegerent (vidam) of Amiens came hurrying up with a countryman whodeclared on his life that mylord of Burgundy wished for it only to makean attempt upon the king's person; the king's greatest enemies, it wassaid, were already, or soon would be, with the duke; and the captainsvehemently reiterated their objections. But Louis held to his purpose,and started for Noyon on the 2d of October, taking with him theconstable, the cardinal, his confessor, and, for all his escort,fourscore of his faithful Scots, and sixty men-at-arms. This knowinggossip, as his contemporaries called him, had fits of rashness andaudacious vanity.

Duke Charles went to meet him outside the town. They embraced oneanother, and returned on foot to Peronne, chatting familiarly, and theking with his hand resting on the duke's shoulder, in token of amity.Louis had quarters at the house of the chamberlain of the town; thecastle of Peronne being, it was said, in too bad a state, and too illfurnished, for his reception. On the very day that the king enteredPeronne, the duke's army, commanded by the Marshal of Burgundy, arrivedfrom the opposite side, and encamped beneath the walls. Several formerservants of the king, now not on good terms with him, accompanied theBurgundian army. "As soon as the king was apprised of the arrival ofthese folks," says Commynes, "he had a great fright, and sent to beg ofthe Duke of Burgundy that he might be lodged at the castle, seeing thatall those who had come were evil disposed towards him. The duke was verymuch rejoiced thereat, had him lodged there, and stoutly assured him thathe had no cause for doubt." Next day parleys began between thecouncillors of the two princes. They did not appear much disposed tocome to an understanding, and a little sourness of spirit was beginningto show itself on both sides, when there came news which excited a grandcommotion. "King Louis, on coming to Peronne, had not considered," saysCommynes, "that he had sent two ambassadors to the folks of Liege toexcite them against the duke. Nevertheless, the said ambassadors hadadvanced matters so well that they had already made a great mass (ofrebels). The Liegese came and took by surprise the town of Tongres,wherein were the Bishop of Liege and the Lord of Humbercourt, whom theytook also, slaying, moreover, some servants of the said bishop." Thefugitives who reported this news at Peronne made the matter a great dealworse than it was; they had no doubt, they said, but that the bishop andSire d'Humbercourt had also been murdered; and Charles had no more doubtabout it than they. His fury was extreme; he strode to and fro,everywhere relating the news from Liege. "So the king," said he, "camehere only to deceive me; it is he who, by his ambassadors, excited thesebad folks of Liege; but, by St. George, they shall be severely punishedfor it, and he, himself, shall have cause to repent." He gave immediateorders to have the gates of the town and of the castle closed and guardedby the archers; but being a little troubled, nevertheless, as to theeffect which would be produced by this order, he gave as his reason forit that he was quite determined to have recovered a box full of gold andjewels which had been stolen from him. "I verily believe," saysCommynes, "that if just then the duke had found those whom he addressedready to encourage him, or advise him to do the king a bad turn, he wouldhave done it; but at that time I was still with the said duke; I servedhim as chamberlain, and I slept in his room when I pleased, for such wasthe usage of that house. With me was there none at this speech of theduke's, save two grooms of the chamber, one called Charles de Visen, anative of Dijon, an honest man, and one who had great credit with hismaster; and we exasperated nought, but assuaged according to our power."

Whilst Duke Charles was thus abandoning himself to the first outburst ofhis wrath, King Louis remained impassive in the castle of Peronne, quiteclose to the great tower, wherein, about the year 925, King Charles theSimple had been confined by Herbert, Count of Vermandois, and died aprisoner in 929. None of Louis's people had been removed from him; butthe gate of the castle was strictly guarded. There was no entering.on his service, but by the wicket, and none of the duke's people came tovisit him; he had no occasion to parley, explain himself, and guess whatit was expedient for him to say or do; he was alone, wrestling with hisimagination and his lively impressions, with the feeling upon him of therecent mistakes he had committed, especially in exciting the Liegese torebellion, and forgetting the fact just when he was coming to placehimself in his enemy's hands. Far, however, from losing his head, Louisdisplayed in this perilous trial all the penetration, activity, andshrewdness of his mind, together with all the suppleness of hischaracter; he sent by his own servants questions, offers, and promises toall the duke's servants from whom he could hope for any help or any goodadvice. Fifteen thousand golden crowns, with which he had providedhimself at starting, were given by him to be distributed amongst thehousehold of the Duke of Burgundy; a liberality which was perhapsuseless, since it is said that he to whom he had intrusted the sum kept agood portion of it for himself. The king passed two days in this stateof gloomy expectancy as to what was in preparation against him.

On the 11th of October, Duke Charles, having cooled down a little,assembled his council. The sitting lasted all the day and part of thenight. Louis had sent to make an offer to swear a peace, such as, at themoment of his arrival, had been proposed to him, without any reservationor difficulty on his part. He engaged to join the duke in making warupon the Liegese and chastising them for their rebellion. He would leaveas hostages his nearest relatives and his most intimate advisers. At thebeginning of the council his proposals were not even listened to; therewas no talk but of keeping the king a prisoner, and sending after hisbrother, the Prince Charles, with whom the entire government of thekingdom should be arranged; the messenger had orders to be in readinessto start at once; his horse was in the court-yard; he was only waitingfor the letters which the duke was writing to Brittany. The chancellorof Burgundy and some of the wiser councillors besought the duke toreflect.

The king had come to Peronne on the faith of his safe-conduct; it wouldbe an eternal dishonor for the house of Burgundy if he broke his word tohis sovereign lord; and the conditions which the king was prepared togrant would put an end, with advantage to Burgundy, to serious anddifficult business. The duke gave heed to these honest and prudentcounsels; the news from Liege turned out to be less serious than thefirst rumors had represented; the bishop and Sire d'Humbercourt had beenset at liberty. Charles retired to his chamber; and there, withoutthinking of undressing, he walked to and fro with long strides, threwhimself upon his bed, got up again, and soliloquized out loud, addressinghimself occasionally to Commynes, who lay close by him. Towards morning,though he still showed signs of irritation, his language was lessthreatening. "He has promised me," said he, "to come with me toreinstate the Bishop of Liege, who is my brother-in-law, and a relationof his also; he shall certainly come; I shall not scruple to hold him tohis word that he gave me;" and he at once sent Sires de Crequi, deCharni, and de la Roche to tell the king that he was about to come andswear peace with him. Commynes had only just time to tell Louis in whatframe of mind the duke was, and in what danger he would place himself, ifhe hesitated either to swear peace or to march against the Liegese.

As soon as it was broad day, the duke entered the apartment of the castlewhere the king was a prisoner. His look was courteous, but his voicetrembled with choler; his words were short and bitter, his manner wasthreatening. A little troubled at his aspect, Louis said, "Brother, I amsafe, am I not, in your house and your country?" "Yes, sir," answeredthe duke, "so safe that if I saw an arrow from a bow coming towards you Iwould throw myself in the way to protect you. But will you not bepleased to swear the treaty just as it is written?" "Yes," said theking, "and I thank you for your good will." "And will you not be pleasedto come with me to Liege, to help me punish the treason committed againstme by these Lidgese, all through you and your journey hither? The bishopis your near relative, of the house of Bourbon." "Yes, Padues-Dieu,"replied Louis, "and I am much astounded at their wickedness. But beginwe by swearing this treaty; and then I will start, with as many or as fewof my people as you please."

Forthwith was taken out from the king's boxes the wood of the so-calledtrue cross, which was named the cross of St. Laud, because it had beenpreserved in the church of St. Laud, at Angers. It was supposed to haveformerly belonged to Charlemagne; and it was the relic which Louisregarded as the most sacred. The treaty was immediately signed, withoutany change being made in that of Conflans. The Duke of Burgundy merelyengaged to use his influence with Prince Charles of France to induce himto be content with Brie and Champagne as appanage. The storm wasweathered; and Louis almost rejoiced at seeing himself called upon tochastise in person the Liegese, who had made him commit such a mistakeand run such a risk.

Next day the two princes set out together, Charles with his army, andLouis with his modest train increased by three hundred men-at-arms, whomhe had sent for from France. On the 27th of October they arrived beforeLiege. Since Duke Charles's late victories, the city had no longer anyramparts or ditches; nothing seemed easier than to get into it; but thebesieged could not persuade themselves that Louis was sincerely alliedwith the Duke of Burgundy, and they made a sortie, shouting, "Hurrah forthe king! Hurrah for France!" Great was their surprise when they sawLouis advancing in person, wearing in his hat the cross of St. Andrew ofBurgundy, and shouting, "Hurrah for Burgundy!" Some even amongst theFrench who surrounded the king were shocked; they could not reconcilethemselves to so little pride and such brazen falsehood. Louis took noheed of their temper, and never ceased to repeat, "When pride ridesbefore, shame and hurt follow close after." The surprise of the Liegesewas transformed into indignation.

[Illustration: Louis XI. and Charles the Rash at Peronne----209]

They made a more energetic and a longer resistance than had beenexpected. The besiegers, confident in their strength, kept carelesswatch, and the sorties of the besieged became more numerous. One nightCharles received notice that his men had just been attacked in a suburbwhich they had held, and were flying. He mounted his horse, gave ordersnot to awake the king, repaired by himself to the place where the fightwas, put everything to rights, and came back and told the whole affair toLouis, who exhibited great joy. Another time, one dark and rainy night,there was an alarm, about midnight, of a general attack upon the wholeBurgundian camp. The duke was soon up, and a moment afterwards the kingarrived. There was great disorder. "The Liegese sallied by this gate,"said some; "No," said others, "it was by that gate!" there was nothingknown for certain, and there were no orders given. Charles was impetuousand brave, but he was easily disconcerted, and his servants were somewhatvexed not to see him putting a better countenance on things before theking. Louis, on the other hand, was cool and calm, giving commandsfirmly, and ready to assume responsibility wherever he happened to be."Take what men you have," said he to the constable St. Poi, who was athis side, "and go in this direction; if they are really coming upon us,they will pass that way." It was discovered to be a false alarm. Twodays afterwards there was a more serious affair. The inhabitants of acanton which was close to the city, and was called Franchemont, resolvedto make a desperate effort, and go and fall suddenly upon the very spotwhere the two princes were quartered. One night, about ten P. M., sixhundred men sallied out by one of the breaches, all men of stout heartsand well armed. The duke's quarters were first attacked. Only twelvearchers were on guard below, and they were playing at dice. Charles wasin bed. Commynes put on him, as quickly as possible, his breastplate andhelmet, and they went down stairs. The archers were with greatdifficulty defending the doorway, but help arrived, and the danger wasover. The quarters of King Louis had also been attacked; but at thefirst sound the Scottish archers had hurried up, surrounded their master,and repulsed the attack, without caring whether their arrows killedLiegese or such Burgundians as had come up with assistance. The gallantfellows from Franchemont fell, almost to a man. The duke and hisprincipal captains held a council the next day; and the duke was fordelivering the assault. The king was not present at this council, andwhen he was informed of the resolution taken he was not in favor of anassault. "You see," said he, "the courage of these people; you know howmurderous and uncertain is street fighting; you will lose many brave mento no purpose. Wait two or three days, and the Liegese will infalliblycome to terms." Nearly all the Burgundian captains sided with the king.The duke got angry. "He wishes to spare the Liegese," said he; "whatdanger is there in this assault? There are no walls; they can't put asingle gun in position; I certainly will not give up the assault; if theking is afraid, let him get him gone to Namur." Such an insult shockedeven the Burgundians. Louis was informed of it, but said nothing. Nextday, the 30th of October, 1468, the assault was ordered; and the dukemarched at the head of his troops. Up came the king; but, "Bide," saidCharles; "put not yourself uselessly in danger; I will send you word whenit is time." "Lead on, brother," replied Louis; "you are the mostfortunate prince alive; I will follow you." And he continued marchingwith him. But the assault was unnecessary. Discouragement had takenpossession of the Liegese, the bravest of whom had fallen. It wasSunday, and the people who remained were not expecting an attack; "thecloth was laid in every house, and all were preparing for dinner." TheBurgundians moved forward through the empty streets; and Louis marchedquietly along, surrounded by his own escort, and shouting, "Hurrah forBurgundy!" The duke turned back to meet him, and they went together togive thanks to God in the cathedral of St. Lambert. It was the onlychurch which had escaped from the fury and the pillaging of theBurgundians; by midday there was nothing left to take in the houses or inthe churches. Louis loaded Duke Charles with felicitations andcommendations: "He knew how to turn them in a fashion so courteous andamiable that the duke was charmed and softened." The next day, as theywere talking together, "Brother," said the king to the duke, "if youhave still need of my help, do not spare me; but if you have nothing morefor me to do, it would be well for me to go back to Paris, to make publicin my court of parliament the arrangement we have come to together;otherwise it would run a risk of becoming of no avail; you know that suchis the custom of France. Next summer we must meet again; you will comeinto your duchy of Burgundy, and I will go and pay you a visit, and wewill pass a week joyously together in making good cheer." Charles madeno answer, and sent for the treaty lately concluded between them atPeronne, leaving it to the king's choice to confirm or to renounce it,and excusing himself in covert terms for having thus constrained him andbrought him away. The king made a show of being satisfied with thetreaty, and on the 2d of November, 1468, the day but one after thecapture of Liege, set out for France. The duke bore him company towithin half a league of the city. As they were taking leave of oneanother, the king said to him, "If, peradventure, my brother Charles, whois in Brittany, should be discontented with the assignment I make him forlove of you, what would you have me do?" "If he do not please to takeit," answered the duke, "but would have you satisfy him, I leave it toyou two." Louis desired no more: he returned home free and confident inhimself, "after having passed the most trying three weeks of his life."

But Louis XI.'s deliverance after his quasi-captivity at Peronne, and thenew treaty he had concluded with Duke Charles, were and could be only atemporary break in the struggle between these two princes, destined asthey were, both by character and position, to irremediableincompatibility. They were too powerful and too different to live atpeace when they were such close neighbors, and when their relations wereso complicated. We find in the chronicle of George Chastelain, a Flemishburgher, and a servant on familiar terms with Duke Charles, as he hadbeen with his father, Duke Philip, a judicious picture of thisincompatibility and the causes of it. "There had been," he says, "at alltimes a rancor between these two princes, and, whatever pacificationmight have been effected to-day, everything returned to-morrow to the oldcondition, and no real love could be established. They suffered fromincompatibility of temperament and perpetual discordance of will; and themore they advanced in years the deeper they plunged into a state ofserious difference and hopeless bitterness. The king was a man ofsubtlety and full of fence; he knew how to recoil for a better spring,how to affect humility and gentleness in his deep designs, how to yieldand to give up in order to receive double, and how to bear and toleratefor a time his own grievances in hopes of being able at last to have hisrevenge. He was, therefore, very much to be feared for his practicalknowledge, showing the greatest skill and penetration in the world. DukeCharles was to be feared for his great courage, which he evinced anddisplayed in his actions, making no account of king or emperor. Thus,whilst the king had great sense and great ability, which he used withdissimulation and suppleness in order to succeed in his views, the duke,on his side, had a great sense of another sort and to another purpose,which he displayed by a public ostentation of his pride, without any fearof putting himself in a false position." Between 1468 and 1477, from theincident at Peronne to the death of Charles at the siege of Nancy, thehistory of the two princes was nothing but one constant alternationbetween ruptures and re-adjustments, hostilities and truces, wherein bothwere constantly changing their posture, their language, and their allies.It was at one time the affairs of the Duke of Brittany or those of PrinceCharles of France, become Duke of Guienne; at another it was therelations with the different claimants to the throne of England, or thefate of the towns, in Picardy, handed over to the Duke of Burgundy by thetreaties of Conflans and Peronne, which served as a ground or pretext forthe frequent recurrences of war. In 1471 St. Quentin opened its gates toCount Louis of St. Poi, constable of France; and Duke Charles complainedwith threats about it to the Count of Dampmartin, who was in commend, onthat frontier, of Louis XI.'s army, and had a good understanding with theconstable. Dampmartin, "one of the bravest men of his time," says Duclos[Histoire de Louis XI in the (Enures completes of Duclos, t. ii. p. 429),"sincere and faithful, a warm friend and an implacable foe, at oncereplied to the duke, 'Most high and puissant prince, I suppose yourletters to have been dictated by your council and highest clerics, whoare folks better at letter-making than I am, for I have not lived byquill-driving. . . . If I write you matter that displeases you, andyou have a desire to revenge yourself upon me, you shall find me so nearto your army that you will know how little fear I have of you. . . .Be assured that if it be your will to go on long making war upon theking, it will at last be found out by all the world that as a soldier youhave mistaken your calling." The next year (1472) war broke out. DukeCharles went and laid siege to Beauvais, and on the 27th of Junedelivered the first assault. The inhabitants were at this moment leftalmost alone to defend their town. A young girl of eighteen, JoanFourquet, whom a burgher's wife of Beauvais, Madame Laisne, her mother byadoption, had bred up in the history, still so recent, of Joan of Arc,threw herself into the midst of the throng, holding up her little axe(hachette) before the image of St. Angadresme, patroness of the town, andcrying, "O glorious virgin, come to my aid; to arms! to arms!" Theassault was repulsed; re-enforcements came up from Noyon, Amiens, andParis, under the orders of the Marshal de Rouault; and the mayor ofBeauvais presented Joan to him. "Sir," said the young girl to him, "youhave everywhere been victor, and you will be so with us." On the 9th ofJuly the Duke of Burgundy delivered a second assault, which lasted fourhours. Some Burgundians had escaladed a part of the ramparts; JoanHachette arrived there just as one of them was planting his flag on thespot; she pushed him over the side into the ditch, and went down inpursuit of him; the man fell on one knee; Joan struck him down, tookpossession of the flag, and mounted up to the ramparts again, crying,"Victory!" The same cry resounded at all points of the wall; the assaultwas everywhere repulsed. The vexation of Charles was great; the daybefore he had been almost alone in advocating the assault; in theevening, as he lay on his camp-bed, according to his custom, he had askedseveral of his people whether they thought the townsmen were prepared forit. "Yes, certainly," was the answer; "there are a great number ofthem." "You will not find a soul there to-morrow," said Charles with asneer. He remained for twelve days longer before the place, looking fora better chance; but on the 12th of July he decided upon raising thesiege, and took the road to Normandy. Some days before attackingBeauvais, he had taken, not without difficulty, Nesle in the Vermandois."There it was," says Commynes, "that he first committed a horrible andwicked deed of war, which had never been his wont; this was burningeverything everywhere; those who were taken alive were hanged; a prettylarge number had their hands cut off. It mislikes me to speak of suchcruelty; but I was on the spot, and must needs say something about it."Commynes undoubtedly said something about it to Charles himself, whoanswered, "It is the fruit borne by the tree of war; it would have beenthe fate of Beauvais if I could have taken the town."

Between the two rivals in France, relations with England were a subjectof constant manoeuvring and strife. In spite of reverses on theContinent and civil wars in their own island, the Kings of England hadnot abandoned their claims to the crown of France; they were still inpossession of Calais; and the memory of the battles of Crecy, Poitiers,and Agincourt was still a tower of strength to them. Between 1470 and1472 the house of York had triumphed over the house of Lancaster; andEdward IV. was undisputed king. In his views touching France he found anatural ally in the Duke of Burgundy; and it was in concert with Charlesthat Edward was incessantly concocting and attempting plots and campaignsagainst Louis XI. In 1474 he, by a herald, called upon Louis to give upto him Normandy and Guienne, else, he told him, he would cross over toFrance with his army. "Tell your master," answered Louis coolly, "that Ishould not advise him to." Next year the herald returned to tell Louisthat the King of England, on the point of embarking, called upon him togive up to him the kingdom of France. Louis had a conversation with theherald. "Your king," said he, "is undertaking this war against his owngrain at the solicitation of the Duke of Burgundy; he would do muchbetter to live in peace with me, instead of devoting himself to allieswho cannot but compromise him without doing him any service;" and he hadthree hundred golden crowns presented to the herald, with a promise ofconsiderably more if peace were made. The herald, thus won over,promised, in his turn, to do all he could, saying that he believed thathis master would lend a willing ear, but that, before mentioning thesubject, they must wait until Edward had crossed the sea and formed someidea of the difficulties in the way of his enterprise; and he advisedLouis to establish communications with my lord Howard and my lordStanley, who had great influence with King Edward. "Whilst the king wasparleying with the said herald, there were many folks in the hall," saysCommynes, "who were waiting, and had great longing to know what the kingwas saying to him, and what countenance he would wear when he came fromwithin. The king, when he had made an end, called me and told me to keepthe said herald talking, so that none might speak to him, and to havedelivered unto him a piece of crimson velvet containing thirty ells. Sodid I, and the king was right joyous at that which he had got out of thesaid herald."

[Illustration: Philip de Commynes----217]

It was now three years since Philip de Commynes had left the Duke ofBurgundy's service to enter that of Louis XI. In 1471 Charles had, noneknows why, rashly authorized an interview between Louis and De Commynes."The king's speech," says the chronicler Molinet, in the Duke ofBurgundy's service, "was so sweet and full of virtue that it entranced,siren-like, all those who gave ear to it." "Of all princes," saysCommynes himself, "he was the one who was at most pains to gain over aman who was able to serve him, and able to injure him; and he was not putout at being refused once by one whom he was working to gain over, butcontinued thereat, making him large promises, and actually giving moneyand estate when he made acquaintances that were pleasing to him."Commynes spoke according to his own experience. Louis, from the momentof making his acquaintance, had guessed his value; and as early as 1468,in the course of his disagreeable adventure at Peronne, he had found thegood offices of Commynes of great service to him. It was probably fromthis very time that he applied himself assiduously to the task of gaininghim over. Commynes hesitated a long while; but Louis was even moreperseveringly persistent than Commynes was hesitating. The king backedup his handsome offers by substantial and present gifts. In 1471,according to what appears, he lent Commynes six thousand livres of Tours,which the Duke of Burgundy's councillor lodged with a banker at Tours.The next year, the king, seeing that Commynes was still slow to decide,bade one of his councillors to go to Tours, in his name, and seize at thebanker's the six thousand livres intrusted to the latter by Commynes."This," says the learned editor of the last edition of Commynes'Memoires, "was an able and decisive blow. The effect of the seizurecould not but be, and indeed was, to put Commynes in the awkward dilemmaof seeing his practices (as the saying was at that time) divulged withoutreaping the fruit of them, or of securing the advantages only by settingaside the scruples which held him back. He chose the latter course,which had become the safer; and during the night between the 7th and 8thof August, 1472, he left Burgundy forever. The king was at that time atPonts-de-Ce, and there his new servant joined him." The very day of hisdeparture, at six A. M., Duke Charles had a seizure made of all the goodsand all the rights belonging to the fugitive; "but what Commynes lost onone side," says his editor, "he was about to recover a hundred fold onthe other; scarcely had he arrived at the court of Louis XI. when hereceived at once the title of councillor and chamberlain to the king;soon afterwards a pension of six thousand livres of Tours was secured tohim, by way of giving him wherewithal to honorably maintain his position;he was put into the place of captain of the castle and keep of the townof Chinon; and lastly, a present was made to him of the rich principalityof Talmont." Six months later, in January, 1473, Commynes married Helende Chambes, daughter of the lord of Montsoreau, who brought him as dowrytwenty-seven thousand five hundred livres of Tours, which enabled him topurchase the castle, town, barony, land, and lordship of Argenton[arrondissement of Bressuire, department of Deux-Sevres], the title ofwhich he thenceforward assumed.

Half a page or so can hardly be thought too much space to devote in aHistory of France to the task of tracing to their origin the conduct andfortunes of one of the most eminent French politicians, who, after havingtaken a chief part in the affairs of their country and their epoch, havededicated themselves to the work of narrating them in a spirit of liberaland admirable comprehension both of persons and events. But we willreturn to Louis XI.

The King of England readily entertained the overtures announced to him byhis herald. He had landed at Calais on the 22d of June, 1475, with anarmy of from sixteen to eighteen thousand men thirsting for conquest andpillage in France, and the Duke of Burgundy had promised to go and joinhim with a considerable force; but the latter, after having appeared fora moment at Calais to concert measures with his ally, returned no more,and even hesitated about admitting the English into his towns of Artoisand Picardy. Edward waited for him nearly two months at Peronne, but invain. During this time Louis continued his attempts at negotiation. Hefixed his quarters at Amiens, and Edward came and encamped half a leaguefrom the town. The king sent to him, it is said, three hundred wagonsladen with the best wines he could find, "the which train," saysCommynes, "was almost an army as big as the English;" at the entrance ofthe gate of Amiens Louis had caused to be set out two large tables"laden with all sorts of good eatables and good wines; and at each ofthese two tables he had caused to be seated five or six men of goodfamily, stout and fat, to make better sport for them who had a mind todrink. When the English went into the town, wherever they put up theyhad nothing to pay; there were nine or ten taverns, well supplied,whither they went to eat and drink, and asked for what they pleased. Andthis lasted three or four days." An agreement was soon come to as to theterms of peace. King Edward bound himself to withdraw with his army toEngland so soon as Louis XI. should have paid him seventy-five thousandcrowns. Louis promised besides to pay annually to King Edward fiftythousand crowns, in two payments, during the time that both princes werealive. A truce for seven years was concluded; they made mutual promisesto lend each other aid if they were attacked by their enemies or by theirown subjects in rebellion; and Prince Charles, the eldest son of LouisXI., was to marry Elizabeth, Edward's daughter, when both should be ofmarriageable age. Lastly, Queen Margaret of Anjou, who had been aprisoner in England since the death of her husband, Henry VI., was to beset at liberty, and removed to France, on renouncing all claim to thecrown of England. These conditions having been formulated, it was agreedthat the two kings should meet and sign them at Pecquigny, on the Somme,three leagues from Amiens. Thither, accordingly, they repaired, on the29th of August, 1475. Edward, as he drew near, doffed "his bonnet ofblack velvet, whereon was a large fleur-de-lis in jewels, and bowed downto within half a foot of the ground." Louis made an equally deepreverence, saying, "Sir my cousin, right welcome; there is no man in theworld I could more desire to see than I do you, and praised be God thatwe are here assembled with such good intent." The King of Englandanswered this speech "in good French enough," says Commynes. The missalwas brought; the two kings swore and signed four distinct treaties; andthen they engaged in a long private conversation, after which Louis wentaway to Amiens and Edward to his army, whither Louis sent to him "allthat he had need of, even to torches and candles." As he went chattingalong the road with Commynes, Louis told him that he had found the Kingof England so desirous of paying a visit to Paris that he had beenanything but pleased. "He is a right handsome king," said he: "he isvery fond of women; and he might well meet at Paris some smitten one whowould know how to make him such pretty speeches as to render him desirousof another visit. His predecessors were far too much in Normandy andParis; his comradeship is worth nothing on our side of the sea; on theother side, over yonder, I should like very well to have him for goodbrother and good friend." Throughout the whole course of the negotiationLouis had shown pliancy and magnificence; he had laden Edward's chiefcourtiers with presents; two thousand crowns by way of pension had beenallowed to his grand chamberlain, Lord Hastings, who would not give anacknowledgment. "This gift comes of the king your master's good pleasure,and not at my request," said he to Louis's steward; "if you would have metake it, you shall slip it here inside my sleeve, and have no letter orvoucher beyond; I do not wish to have people saying, 'The grandchamberlain of England was the King of France's pensioner,' or to have myacknowledgments found in his exchequer-chamber." Lord Hastings had notalways been so scrupulous, for, on the 15th of May, 1471, he had receivedfrom the Duke of Burgundy a pension for which he had given anacknowledgment. Another Englishman, whose name is not given by Commynes,waxed wroth at hearing some one say, "Six hundred pipes of wine and apension given you by the king soon sent you back to England." "That iscertainly what everybody said," answered the Englishman, "that you mighthave the laugh against us. But call you the money the king gives uspension? Why, it is tribute; and, by St. George, you may perhaps talk somuch about it as to bring us down upon you again!" "There was nothing inthe world," says Commynes, "of which the king was more fearful than lestany word should escape him to make the English think that they were beingderided; at the same time that he was laboring to gain them over, he wascareful to humor their susceptibilities;" and Commynes, under hisschooling, had learned to understand them well: "They are rather slowgoers," says he, "but you must have a little patience with them, and notlose your temper. . . . I fancy that to many it might appear that theking abased himself too much; but the wise might well hold that thekingdom was in great danger, save for the intervention of God, who diddispose the king's mind to choose so wise a course, and did greatlytrouble that of the Duke of Burgundy. . . . Our king knew well thenature of the King of England, who was very fond of his ease and hispleasures: when he had concluded these treaties with him, he ordered thatthe money should be found with the greatest expedition, and every one hadto lend somewhat to help to supply it on the spot. The king said thatthere was nothing in the world he would not do to thrust the King ofEngland out of the realm, save only that he would never consent that theEnglish should have a bit of territory there; and, rather than sufferthat, he would put everything to jeopardy and risk."

Commynes had good reason to say that the kingdom was in great peril. Theintentions of Charles the Rash tended to nothing short of bringing backthe English into France, in order to share it with them. He made noconcealment of it. "I am so fond of the kingdom," said he, "that I wouldmake six of it in France." He was passionately eager for the title ofking. He had put out feelers for it in the direction of Germany, and theemperor, Frederic III., had promised it to him together with that ofvicar-general of the empire, on condition that his daughter, Mary ofBurgundy, married Duke Maximilian, Frederic's son. Having beenunsuccessful on the Rhine, Charles turned once more towards the Thames,and made alliance with Edward IV., King of England, with a view ofrenewing the English invasion of France, flattering himself, of course,that he would profit by it. To destroy the work of Joan of Arc andCharles VII.--such was the design, a criminal and a shameful one for aFrench prince, which was checkmated by the peace of Peequigny. Charleshimself acknowledged as much when, in his wrath at this treaty, he said,"He had not sought to bring over the English into France for any need hehad of them, but to enable them to recover what belonged to them;" andLouis XI. was a patriotic king when he declared that "there was nothingin the world he would not do to thrust the King of England out of therealm, and, rather than suffer the English to have a bit of territory inFrance, he would put everything to jeopardy and risk."

The Duke of Burgundy, as soon as he found out that the King of Francehad, under the name of truce, made peace for seven years with the King ofEngland, and that Edward IV. had recrossed the Channel with his army, sawthat his attempts, so far, were a failure. Accordingly he too lost notime in signing [on the 13th of September, 1475] a truce with King Louisfor nine years, and directing his ambition and aiming his blows againstother quarters than Western France. Two little states, his neighbors onthe east, Lorraine and Switzerland, became the object and the theatre ofhis passion for war. Lorraine had at that time for its duke Rene II., ofthe house of Anjou through his mother Yolande, a young prince who waswavering, as so many others were, between France and Burgundy. Charlessuddenly entered Lorraine, took possession of several castles, had theinhabitants who resisted hanged, besieged Nancy, which made a valiantdefence, and ended by conquering the capital as well as thecountry-places, leaving Duke Rene no asylum but the court of Louis XI.,of whom the Lorraine prince had begged a support, which Louis, after hiscustom, had promised without rendering it effectual. Charles did notstop there. He had already been more than once engaged in hostilitieswith his neighbors the Swiss; and he now learned that they had just madea sanguinary raid upon the district of Vaud, the domain of a petty princeof the house of Savoy, and a devoted servant of the Duke of Burgundy.Scarcely two months after the capture of Nancy, Charles set out, on the11th of June, 1476, to go and avenge his client, and wreak his haughtyand turbulent humor upon these bold peasants of the Alps.

In spite of the truce he had but lately concluded with Charles the Rash,the prudent Louis did not cease to keep an attentive watch upon him, andto reap advantage, against him, from the leisure secured to the King ofFrance by his peace with the King of England and the Duke of Brittany. Alate occurrence had still further strengthened his position: his brotherCharles, who became Duke of Guienne, in 1469, after the treaty ofPeronne, had died on the 24th of May, 1472. There were sinister rumorsabroad touching his death. Louis was suspected, and even accused to theDuke of Brittany, an intimate friend of the deceased prince, of havingpoisoned his brother. He caused an inquiry to be instituted into thematter; but the inquiry itself was accused of being incomplete andinconclusive. "King Louis did not, possibly, cause his brother's death,"says M. de Barante, "but nobody thought him incapable of it." The willwhich Prince Charles had dictated a little before his death increased thehorror inspired by such a suspicion. He manifested in it a feeling ofaffection and confidence towards the king his brother; he requested himto treat his servants kindly; "and if in any way," he added, "we have everoffended our right dread and right well-beloved brother, we do beg him tobe pleased to forgive us; since, for our part, if ever in any matter hehath offended us, we do affectionately pray the Divine Majesty to forgivehim, and with good courage and good will do we on our part forgive him."The Duke of Guienne at the same time appointed the king executor of hiswill. If we acknowledge, however, that Louis was not incapable of such acrime, it must be admitted that there is no trust-worthy proof of hisguilt. At any rate his brother's death had important results for him.Not only did it set him free from all fresh embarrassment in thatdirection, but it also restored to him the beautiful province of Guienne,and many a royal client. He treated the friends of Prince Charles,whether they had or had not been heretofore his own, with markedattention. He re-established at Bordeaux the parliament he had removedto Poitiers; he pardoned the towns of Pdzenas and Montignac for some lateseditions; and, lastly, he took advantage of this incident to pacify andsatisfy this portion of the kingdom. Of the great feudal chieftains who,in 1464, had formed against him the League of the common weal, the Dukeof Burgundy was the only one left on the scene, and in a condition to puthim in peril.

But though here was for the future his only real adversary, Louis XI.continued, and with reason, to regard the Duke of Burgundy as his mostformidable foe, and never ceased to look about for means and allieswherewith to encounter him. He could no longer count upon theco-operation, more or less general, of the Flemings. His behavior to theLiegese after the incident at Peronne, and his share in the disasterwhich befell Liege, had lost him all his credit in the Flemish cities.The Flemings, besides, had been disheartened and disgusted at the idea ofcompromising themselves for or against their Burgundian prince. Whenthey saw him entering upon the campaign in Lorraine and Switzerland, theythemselves declared to him what he might or might not expect from them."If he were pressed," they said, "by the Germans or the Swiss, and hadnot with him enough men to make his way back freely to his own borders,he had only to let them know, and they would expose their persons andtheir property to go after him and fetch him back safely within his saidborders, but as for making war again at his instance, they were not freeto aid him any more with either men or money." Louis XI., then, hadnothing to expect from the Flemings any more; but for two years past, andso soon as he observed the commencement of hostilities between the Dukeof Burgundy and the Swiss, he had paved the way for other alliances inthat quarter. In 1473 he had sent "to the most high and mighty lords andmost dear friends of ours, them of the league and city of Berne and ofthe great and little league of Germany, ambassadors charged to makeproposals to them, if they would come to an understanding to be friendsof friends and foes of foes" (make an offensive and defensive alliance).The proposal was brought before the diet of the cantons assembled atLucerne. The King of France "regretted that the Duke of Burgundy wouldnot leave the Swiss in peace; he promised that his advice and support,whether in men or in money, should not be wanting to them; he offered toeach canton an annual friendly donation of two thousand livres; and heengaged not to summon their valiant warriors to take service save in caseof pressing need, and unless Switzerland were herself at war." Thequestion was discussed with animation; the cantons were divided; somewould have nothing to do with either the alliance or the money of LouisXI., of whom they spoke with great distrust and antipathy; othersinsisted upon the importance of being supported by the King of France intheir quarrels with the Duke of Burgundy, and scornfully repudiated thefear that the influence and money of Louis would bring a taint upon theindependence and the good morals of their country. The latter opinioncarried the day; and, on the 2d of October, 1474, conformably with atreaty concluded, on the 10th of the previous January, between the Kingof France and the league of Swiss cantons, the canton of Berne made tothe French legation the following announcement: "If, in the future, thesaid lords of the league asked help from the King of France against theDuke of Burgundy, and if the said lord king, being engaged in his ownwars, could not help them with men, in this case he should cause to belodged and handed over to them, in the city of Lyons, twenty thousandRhenish florins every quarter of a year, as long as the war actuallycontinued; and we, on our part, do promise, on our faith and honor, thatevery time and however many times the said lord king shall ask help fromthe said lords of the league, we will take care that they do help him andaid him with six thousand men in his wars and expeditions, according tothe tenor of the late alliance and union made between them, howbeit onpayment."

A Bernese messenger carried this announcement to the Burgundian campbefore the fortress of Neuss, and delivered it into the hands of DukeCharles himself, whose only remark, as he ground his teeth, was, "Ah!Berne! Berne!" At the be-ginning of January, 1476, he left Nancy, ofwhich he had recently gained possession, returned to Besancon, andstarted thence on the 6th of February to take the field with an armyamounting, it is said, to thirty or forty thousand men, provided with apowerful artillery and accompanied by an immense baggage-train, whereinCharles delighted to display his riches and magnificence in contrast withthe simplicity and roughness of his personal habits. At the rumor ofsuch an armament the Swiss attempted to keep off the war from theircountry. "I have heard tell," says Commynes, "by a knight of theirs, whohad been sent by them to the said duke, that he told him that againstthem he could gain nothing, for that their country was very barren andpoor; that there were no good prisoners to make, and that the spurs andthe horses' bits in his own army were worth more money than all thepeople of their territory could pay in ransom even if they were taken."Charles, however, gave no heed, saw nothing in their representations butan additional reason for hurrying on his movements with confidence, andon the 19th of February arrived before Granson, a little town in thedistrict of Vaud, where war had already begun.

Louis XI. watched all these incidents closely, keeping agents everywhere,treating secretly with everybody, with the Duke of Burgundy as well aswith the Swiss, knowing perfectly well what he wanted, but holdinghimself ready to face anything, no matter what the event might be. Whenhe saw that the crisis was coming, he started from Tours and went to takeup his quarters at Lyons, close to the theatre of war and within an easydistance for speedy information and prompt action. Scarcely had hearrived, on the 4th of March, when he learned that, on the day but onebefore, Duke Charles had been tremendously beaten by the Swiss atGranson; the squadrons of his chivalry had not been able to make anyimpression upon the battalions of Berne, Schwitz, Soleure, and Fribourg,armed with pikes eighteen feet long; and at sight of the mountaineersmarching with huge strides and lowered heads upon their foes andheralding their advance by the lowings of the bull of Uri and the cow ofUnterwalden, two enormous instruments made of buffalo-horn, and given, itwas said, to their ancestors by Charlemagne, the whole Burgundian army,seized with panic, had dispersed in all directions, "like smoke beforethe northern blast." Charles himself had been forced to fly with onlyfive horsemen, it is said, for escort, leaving all his camp, artillery,treasure, oratory, jewels, down to his very cap garnished with preciousstones and his collar of the Golden Fleece, in the hands of the "poorSwiss," astounded at their booty and having no suspicion of its value."They sold the silver plate for a few pence, taking it for pewter," saysM. de Barante. Those magnificent silks and velvets, that cloth of goldand damask, that Flanders lace, and those carpets from Arras which werefound heaped up in chests, were cut in pieces and distributed by the ell,like common canvas in a village shop. The duke's large diamond which hewore round his neck, and which had once upon a time glittered in thecrown of the Great Mogul, was found on the road, inside a little box setwith fine pearls. The man who picked it up kept the box and threw awaythe diamond as a mere bit of glass. Afterwards he thought better of it;went to look for the stone, found it under a wagon, and sold it for acrown to a clergyman of the neighborhood. "There was nothing saved butthe bare life," says Commynes.

That even the bare life was saved was a source of sorrow to Louis XI.in the very midst of his joy at the defeat. He was, nevertheless, mostproper in his behavior and language towards Duke Charles, who sent to himSire de Contay "with humble and gracious words, which was contrary to hisnature and his custom," says Commynes; "but see how an hour's timechanged him; he prayed the king to be pleased to observe loyally thetruce concluded between them, he excused himself for not having appearedat the interview which was to have taken place at Auxerre, and he boundhimself to be present, shortly, either there or elsewhere, according tothe king's good pleasure." Louis promised him all he asked, "for," addsCommynes, "it did not seem to him time, as yet, to do other-wise;" and hegave the duke the good advice "to return home and bide there quietly,rather than go on stubbornly warring with yon folks of the Alps, so poorthat there was nought to gain by taking their lands, but valiant andobstinate in battle." Louis might give this advice fearlessly, beingquite certain that Charles would not follow it. The latter's defeat atGranson had thrown him into a state of gloomy irritation. At Lausanne,where he staid for some time, he had "a great sickness, proceeding," saysCommynes, "from grief and sadness on account of this shame that he hadsuffered; and, to tell the truth, I think that never since was hisunderstanding so good as it had been before this battle." Before he fellill, on the 12th of March, Charles issued orders from his camp beforeLausanne to his lieutenant at Luxembourg to put under arrest "and visitwith the extreme penalty of death, without waiting for other command fromus, all the men-at-arms, archers, cross-bowmen, infantry, or othersoldiery" who had fled or dispersed after the disaster at Granson; "andas to those who be newly coming into our service it is ordered by us thatthey, on pain of the same punishment, do march towards us with alldiligence; and if they make any delay, our pleasure is that you proceedagainst them in the manner hereinabove declared without fail in any way."With such fiery and ruthless energy Charles collected a fresh army,having a strength, it is said, of from twenty-five to thirty thousandmen, Burgundians, Flemings, Italians, and English; and after havingreviewed it on the platform above Lausanne, he set out on the 27th ofMay, 1476, and pitched his camp on the 10th of June before the littletown of Morat, six leagues from Berne, giving notice everywhere that itwas war to the death that he intended. The Swiss were expecting it, andwere prepared for it. The energy of pride was going to be pitted againstthe energy of patriotism. "The Duke of Burgundy is here with all hisforces, his Italian mercenaries and some traitors of Germans," said theletter written to the Bernese by the governor of Morat, Adrian ofBubenberg; "the gentlemen of the magistracy, of the council, and of theburgherhood may be free from fear and hurry, and may set at rest theminds of all our confederates: I will defend Morat;" and he swore to thegarrison and the inhabitants that he would put to death the first whoshould speak of surrender. Morat had been for ten days holding outagainst the whole army of the Burgundians; the confederate Swiss werearriving successively at Berne; and the men of Zurich alone were late.Their fellow-countryman, Hans Waldmann, wrote to them, "We positivelymust give battle or we are lost, every one of us. The Burgundians arethree times more numerous than they were at Granson, but we shall manageto pull through. With God's help great honor awaits us. Do not fail tocome as quickly as possible." On the 21st of June, in the evening, theZurichers arrived. "Ha!" the duke was just saying, "have these houndslost heart, pray? I was told that we were about to get at them." Nextday, the 22d of June, after a pelting rain and with the first gleams ofthe returning sun, the Swiss attacked the Burgundian camp. A man-at-armscame and told the duke, who would not believe it, and dismissed themessenger with a coarse insult, but hurried, nevertheless, to the pointof attack. The battle was desperate; but before the close of the day itwas hopelessly lost by the Burgundians. Charles had still three thousandhorse, but he saw them break up, and he himself had great difficulty ingetting away, with merely a dozen men behind him, and reaching Merges,twelve leagues from Morat. Eight or ten thousand of his men had fallen,more than half, it is said, killed in cold blood after the fight. Neverhad the Swiss been so dead set against their foes; and "as cruel as atMorat" was for a long while a common expression.

"The king," says Commynes, "always willingly gave somewhat to him who wasthe first to bring him some great news, without forgetting the messenger,and he took pleasure in speaking thereof before the news came, saying, 'Iwill give so much to him who first brings me such and such news.' Mylord of Bouchage and I (being together) had the first message about thebattle of Morat, and told it both together to the king, who gave each ofus two hundred marks of silver." Next day Louis, as prudent in the hourof joy as of reverse, wrote to Count de Dampmartin, who was in command ofhis troops concentrated at Senlis, with orders to hold himself inreadiness for any event, but still carefully observe the truce with theDuke of Burgundy. Charles at that time was thinking but little of Louisand their truce; driven to despair by the disaster at Morat, but moredead set than ever on the struggle, he repaired from Morges to Gex, andfrom Gex to Salins, and summoned successively, in July and August, atSalins, at Dijon, at Brussels, and at Luxembourg the estates of hisvarious domains, making to all of them an appeal, at the same timesupplicatory and imperious, calling upon them for a fresh army with whichto recommence the war with the Swiss, and fresh subsidies with which topay it. "If ever," said he, "you have desired to serve us and do uspleasure, see to doing and accomplishing all that is bidden you; make nodefault in anything whatsoever, and he henceforth in dread of thepunishments which may ensue." But there was everywhere a feeling ofdisgust with the service of Duke Charles; there was no more desire ofserving him and no more fear of disobeying him; he encountered almosteverywhere nothing but objections, complaints, and refusals, or else asilence and an inactivity which were still worse. Indignant, dismayed,and dumbfounded at such desertion, Charles retired to his castle of LaRiviere, between Pontarlier and Joux, and shut himself up there for morethan six weeks, without, however, giving up the attempt to collectsoldiers. "Howbeit," says Commynes, "he made but little of it; he kepthimself quite solitary, and he seemed to do it from sheer obstinacy morethan anything else. His natural heat was so great that he used to drinkno wine, generally took barley-water in the morning and ate preservedrose-leaves to keep himself cool; but sorrow changed his complexion somuch that he was obliged to drink good strong wine without water, and, tobring the blood back to his heart, burning tow was put into cupping-glasses, and they were applied thus heated to the region of the heart.Such are the passions of those who have never felt adversity, especiallyof proud princes who know not how to discover any remedy. The firstrefuge, in such a case, is to have recourse to God, to consider whetherone have offended Him in aught, and to confess one's misdeeds. Afterthat, what does great good is to converse with some friend, and not beashamed to show one's grief before him, for that lightens and comfortsthe heart; and not at any rate to take the course the duke took ofconcealing himself and keeping himself solitary; he was so terrible tohis own folks that none durst come forward to give him any comfort orcounsel; but all left him to do as he pleased, feeling that, if they madehim any remonstrance, it would be the worse for them."

But events take no account of the fears and weaknesses of men. Charleslearned before long that the Swiss were not his most threatening foes,and that he had something else to do instead of going after them amongsttheir mountains. During his two campaigns against them, the Duke ofLorraine, Rend II., whom he had despoiled of his dominions and drivenfrom Nancy, had been wandering amongst neighboring princes and people inFrance, Germany, and Switzerland, at the courts of Louis XI. and theEmperor Frederic III., on visits to the patricians of Berne, and in thefree towns of the Rhine. He was young, sprightly, amiable, and brave; hehad nowhere met with great assistance, but he had been well received, andcertain promises had been made him. When he saw the contest so hotlycommenced between the Duke of Burgundy and the Swiss, he resolutely puthimself at the service of the republican mountaineers, fought for them intheir ranks, and powerfully contributed to their victory at Morat. Thedefeat of Charles and his retreat to his castle of La Riviere gave Rendnew hopes, and gained him some credit amongst the powers which hadhitherto merely testified towards him a good will of but little value;and his partisans in Lorraine recovered confidence in his for-tunes. Oneday, as he was at his prayers in a church, a rich widow, Madame Walther,came up to him in her mantle and hood, made him a deep reverence, andhanded him a purse of gold to help him in winning back his duchy. Thecity of Strasbourg gave him some cannon, four hundred cavalry, and eighthundred infantry; Louis XI. lent him some money; and Rend before longfound himself in a position to raise a small army and retake Epinal,Saint-Did, Vaudemont, and the majority of the small towns in Lorraine.He then went and laid siege to Nancy. The Duke of Burgundy had leftthere as governor John de Rubemprd, lord of Bievres, with a feeblegarrison, which numbered amongst its ranks three hundred English, pickedmen. Sire de Bievres sent message after message to Charles, who did noteven reply to him. The town was short of provisions; the garrison wasdispirited; and the commander of the English was killed. Sire deBievres, a loyal servant, but a soldier of but little energy, determinedto capitulate. On the 6th of October, 1476, he evacuated the place atthe head of his men, all safe in person and property. At sight of himRend dismounted, and handsomely went forward to meet him, saying, "Sir,my good uncle, I thank you for having so courteously governed my duchy;if you find it agreeable to remain with me, you shall fare the same asmyself." "Sir," answered Sire de Bievres, "I hope that you will notthink ill of me for this war; I very much wish that my lord of Burgundyhad never begun it, and I am much afraid that neither he nor I will seethe end of it."

Sire de Bievres had no idea how true a prophet he was. Almost at thevery moment when he was capitulating, Duke Charles, throwing off hissombre apathy, was once more entering Lorraine with all the troops hecould collect, and on the 22d of October he in his turn went and laidsiege to Nancy. Duke Rend, not considering himself in a position tomaintain the contest with only such forces as he had with him, determinedto quit Nancy in person and go in search of re-enforcements at adistance, at the same time leaving in the town a not very numerous but adevoted garrison, which, together with the inhabitants, promised to holdout for two months. And it did hold out whilst Rend was visitingStrasbourg, Berne, Zurich, and Lucerne, presenting himself before thecouncils of these petty republics with, in order to please them, a tamebear behind him, which he left at the doors, and promising, thanks toLouis XI.'s agents in Switzerland, extraordinary pay. He thus obtainedauxiliaries to the number of eight thousand fighting men. He had,moreover, in the very camp of the Duke of Burgundy, a secret ally, anItalian condottiere, the Count of Campo-Basso, who, either from personalhatred or on grounds of interest, was betraying the master to whom he hadbound himself. The year before, he had made an offer to Louis XI. to goover to him with his troops during a battle, or to hand over to him theDuke of Burgundy, dead or alive. Louis mistrusted the traitor, and sentCharles notice of the offers made by Campo-Basso. But Charles mistrustedLouis's information, and kept Campo-Basso in his service. A littlebefore the battle of Morat Louis had thought better of his scruples orhis doubts, and had accepted, with the compensation of a pension, thekind offices of Campo-Basso. When the war took place in Lorraine, thecondottiere, whom Duke Charles had one day grossly insulted, entered intocommunication with Duke Rend also, and took secret measures for insuringthe failure of the Burgundian attempts upon Nancy. Such was the positionof the two princes and the two armies, when, on the 4th of June, 1477,Rend, having returned with re-enforcements to Lorraine, found himselfconfronted with Charles, who was still intent upon the siege of Nancy.The Duke of Burgundy assembled his captains. "Well!" said he, "sincethese drunken scoundrels are upon us, and are coming here to look formeat and drink, what ought we to do?" The majority of those present wereof opinion that the right thing to do was to fall back into the duchy ofLuxembourg, there to recruit the enfeebled army. "Duke Rene," they said,"is poor; he will not be able to bear very long the expense of the war,and his allies will leave him as soon as he has no more money; wait buta little, and success is certain." Charles flew into a passion. "Myfather and I," said he, "knew how to thrash these Lorrainers; and we willmake them remember it. By St. George! I will not fly before a boy,before Rend of Vaudemont, who is coming at the head of this scum. He hasnot so many men with him as people think; the Germans have no idea ofleaving their stoves in winter. This evening we will deliver the assaultagainst the town, and to-morrow we will give battle."

And the next day, January the 5th, the battle did take place, in theplain of Nancy. The Duke of Burgundy assumed his armor very early in themorning. When he put on his helmet, the gilt lion, which formed thecrest of it, fell off. "That is a sign from God!" said he; but,nevertheless, he went and drew up his army in line of battle. The daybut one before, Campo-Basso had drawn off his troops to a considerabledistance; and he presented himself before Duke Rene, having taken off hisred scarf and his cross of St. Andrew, and being quite ready, he said, togive proofs of his zeal on the spot. Rene spoke about it to his Swisscaptains. "We have no mind," said they, "to have this traitor of anItalian fighting beside us; our fathers never made use of such folk orsuch practices in order to conquer." And Campo-Basso held aloof. Thebattle began in gloomy weather, and beneath heavy flakes of snow, lastedbut a short time, and was not at all murderous in the actual conflict,but the pursuit was terrible. Campo-Basso and his troops held the bridgeof Bouxieres, by which the Burgundian fugitives would want to pass; andthe Lorrainerss of Rend and his Swiss and German allies scoured thecountry, killing all with whom they fell in. Rend returned to Nancy inthe midst of a population whom his victory had delivered from famine aswell as war. "To show him what sufferings they had endured," says M. deBarante, "they conceived the idea of piling up in a heap, before the doorof his hostel, the heads of the horses, dogs, mules, cats, and otherunclean animals which had for several weeks past been the only food ofthe besieged." When the first burst of joy was over, the question was,what had become of the Duke of Burgundy; nobody had a notion; and hisbody was not found amongst the dead in any of the places where his mostvaliant and faithful warriors had fallen. The rumor ran that he was notdead; some said that one of his servants had picked him up wounded on thefield of battle, and was taking care of him, none knew where; andaccording to others, a German lord had made him prisoner, and carried himoff beyond the Rhine. "Take good heed," said many people, "how yecomport yourselves otherwise than if he were still alive, for hisvengeance would be terrible on his return." On the evening of the dayafter the battle, the Count of Campo-Basso brought to Duke Rend a youngRoman page who, he said, had from a distance seen his master fall, andcould easily find the spot again. Under his guidance a move was madetowards a pond hard by the town; and there, half buried in the slush ofthe pond, were some dead bodies, lying stripped. A poor washerwoman,amongst the rest, had joined in the search; she saw the glitter of ajewel in the ring upon one of the fingers of a corpse whose face was notvisible; she went forward, turned the body over, and at once cried, "Ah!my prince!" There was a rush to the spot immediately. As the head wasbeing detached from the ice to which it stuck, the skin came off, and alarge wound was discovered. On examining the body with care, it wasunhesitatingly recognized to be that of Charles, by his doctor, by hischaplain, by Oliver de la Marche, his chamberlain, and by several groomsof the chamber; and certain marks, such as the scar of the wound he hadreceived at Montlhery, and the loss of two teeth, put their assertionbeyond a doubt. As soon as Duke Rend knew that they had at last foundthe body of the Duke of Burgundy, he had it removed to the town, and laidon a bed of state of black velvet, under a canopy of black satin. It wasdressed in a garment of white satin; a ducal crown, set with preciousstones, was placed on the disfigured brow; the lower limbs were cased inscarlet, and on the heels were gilded spurs. The Duke of Lorraine wentand sprinkled holy water on the corpse of his unhappy rival, and, takingthe dead hand beneath the pall, "Ah! dear cousin," said he, with tears inhis _eyes_.

For the time that I knew him he was not cruel; but he became so beforehis death, and that was a bad omen for a long existence. He was verysumptuous in dress and in all other matters, and a little too much so.He showed very great honor to ambassadors and foreign folks; they wereright well feasted and entertained by him. He was desirous of greatglory, and it was that more than ought else that brought him into hiswars; he would have been right glad to be like to those ancient princesof whom there has been so much talk after their death; he was as bold aman as any that reigned in his day. . . . After the long felicity andgreat riches of this house of Burgundy, and after three great princes,good and wise, who had lasted six score years and more in good sense andvirtue, God gave this people the Duke Charles, who kept them constantlyin great war, travail, and expense, and almost as much in winter as insummer. Many rich and comfortable folks were dead or ruined in prisonduring these wars. The great losses began in front of Neuss, andcontinued through three or four battles up to the hour of his death; andat that hour all the strength of his country was sapped; and dead, orruined, or captive, were all who could or would have defended thedominions and the honor of his house. Thus it seems that this loss wasan equal set-off to the time of their felicity. "Please God to forgiveDuke Charles his sins!"

[Illustration: The Corpse of Charles the Rash Discovered----236]

To this pious wish of Commynes, after so judicious a sketch, we may addanother: Please God that people may no more suffer themselves to be takencaptive by the corrupting and ruinous pleasures procured for them bytheir masters' grand but wicked or foolish enterprises, and may learn togive to the men who govern them a glory in proportion to the wisdom andjustice of their deeds, and by no means to the noise they make and therisks they sow broadcast around them!

The news of the death of Charles the Rash was for Louis XI. an unexpectedand unhoped-for blessing, and one in which he could scarcely believe.The news reached him on the 9th of January, at the castle of Plessis-les-Tours, by the medium of a courier sent to him by George de la Tremoille,Sire de Craon, commanding his troops on the frontier of Lorraine.

"Insomuch as this house of Burgundy was greater and more powerful than theothers," says Commynes, "was the pleasure great for the king more thanall the others together; it was the joy of seeing himself set above allthose he hated, and above his principal foes; it might well seem to himthat he would never in his life meet any to gainsay him in his kingdom,or in the neighborhood near him." He replied the same day to Sire deCraon, "Sir Count, my good friend, I have received your letters, and thegood news you have brought to my knowledge, for which I thank you as muchas I am able. Now is the time for you to employ all your five naturalwits to put the duchy and countship of Burgundy in my hands. And, tothat end, place yourself with your band and the governor of Champagne, ifso be that the Duke of Burgundy is dead, within the said country, andtake care, for the dear love you bear me, that you maintain amongst themen of war the best order, just as if you were inside Paris; and makeknown to them that I am minded to treat them and keep them better thanany in my kingdom; and that, in respect of our god-daughter, I have anintention of completing the marriage that I have already had incontemplation between my lord the _dauphin_ and her. Sir Count, Iconsider it understood that you will not enter the said country, or makemention of that which is written above, unless the Duke of Burgundy bedead. And, in any case, I pray you to serve me in accordance with theconfidence I have in you. And adieu!"

Beneath the discreet reserve inspired by a remnant of doubt concerningthe death of his enemy, this letter contained the essence of Louis XI.'sgrand and very natural stroke of policy. Charles the Rash had left onlya daughter, Mary of Burgundy, sole heiress of all his dominions. Toannex this magnificent heritage to the crown of France by the marriage ofthe heiress with the _dauphin_ who was one day to be Charles VIII., wasclearly for the best interests of the nation as well as of the Frenchkingship, and such had, accordingly, been Louis XI.'s first idea. "Whenthe Duke of Burgundy was still alive," says Commynes, "many a time spokethe king to me of what he would do if the duke should happen to die; andhe spoke most reasonably, saying that he would try to make a matchbetween his son (who is now our king) and the said duke's daughter (whowas afterwards Duchess of Austria); and if she were not minded to hear ofit for that my lord, the _dauphin_, was much younger than she, he wouldessay to get her married to some younger lord of this realm, for to keepher and her subjects in amity, and to recover without dispute that whichhe claimed as his; and still was the said lord on this subject a weekbefore he knew of the said duke's death. . . . Howbeit it seems thatthe king our master took not hold of matters by the end by which heshould have taken hold for to come out triumphant, and to add to hiscrown all those great lordships, either by sound title or by marriage, aseasily he might have done."

Commynes does not explain or specify clearly the mistake with which hereproaches his master. Louis XI., in spite of his sound sense andcorrect appreciation, generally, of the political interests of France andof his crown, allowed himself on this great occasion to be swayed bysecondary considerations and personal questions. His son's marriage withthe heiress of Burgundy might cause some embarrassment in his relationswith Edward IV., King of England, to whom he had promised the _dauphin_as a husband for his daughter Elizabeth, who was already sometimescalled, in England, the Dauphiness. In 1477, at the death of the dukeher father, Mary of Burgundy was twenty years old, and Charles, the_dauphin_, was barely eight. There was another question, a point offeudal law, as to whether Burgundy, properly so called, was a fief whichwomen could inherit, or a fief which, in default of a male heir, mustlapse to the suzerain. Several of the Flemish towns which belonged tothe Duke of Burgundy were weary of his wars and his violence, and showedan inclination to pass over to the sway of the King of France. All thesefacts offered pretexts, opportunities, and chances of success for thatcourse of egotistical pretension and cunning intrigue in which Louisdelighted and felt confident of his ability; and into it he plunged afterthe death of Charles the Rash. Though he still spoke of his desire ofmarrying his son, the _dauphin_, to Mary of Burgundy, it was no longerhis dominant and ever-present idea. Instead of taking pains to win thegood will and the heart of Mary herself, he labored with his usual zealand address to dispute her rights, to despoil her brusquely of one oranother town in her dominions, to tamper with her servants, or exciteagainst them the wrath of the populace. Two of the most devoted and mostable amongst them, Hugonet, chancellor of Burgundy, and Sired'Humbercourt, were the victims of Louis XI.'s hostile manoeuvres andof blind hatred on the part of the Ghentese; and all the Princess Mary'spassionate entreaties were powerless both with the king and with theFlemings to save them from the scaffold. And so Mary, alternatelythreatened or duped, attacked in her just rights or outraged in heraffections, being driven to extremity, exhibited a resolution never tobecome the daughter of a prince unworthy of the confidence she, poororphan, had placed in the spiritual tie which marked him out as herprotector. "I understand," said she, "that my father had arranged mymarriage with the emperor's son; I have no mind for any other." Louis inhis alarm tried all sorts of means, seductive and violent, to preventsuch a reverse. He went in person amongst the Walloon and Flemishprovinces belonging to Mary. "That I come into this country," said he tothe inhabitants of Quesnoy, "is for nothing but the interests of Mdlle.de Burgundy, my well-beloved cousin and god-daughter. . . . Of herwicked advisers some would have her espouse the son of the Duke ofCleves; but he is a prince of far too little lustre for so illustrious aprincess; I know that he has a bad sore on his leg; he is a drunkard,like all Germans, and, after drinking, he will break his glass over herhead, and beat her. Others would ally her with the English, thekingdom's old enemies, who all lead bad lives: there are some who wouldgive her for her husband the emperor's son, but those princes of theimperial house are the most avaricious in the world; they will carry offMdlle. de Burgundy to Germany, a strange land and a coarse, where shewill know no consolation, whilst your land of Hainault will be leftwithout any lord to govern and defend it. If my fair cousin were welladvised, she would espouse the _dauphin_; you speak French, you Walloonpeople; you want a prince of France, not a German. As for me, I esteemthe folks of Hainault more than any nation in the world; there is nonemore noble, and in my sight a hind of Hainault is worth more than a grandgentleman of any other country." At the very time that he was using suchflattering language to the good folks of Hainault, he was writing to theCount de Dampmartin, whom he had charged with the repression ofinsurrection in the country-parts of Ghent and Bruges, "Sir Grand Master,I send you some mowers to cut down the crop you wot off; put them, I prayyou, to work, and spare not some casks of wine to set them drinking, andto make them drunk. I pray you, my friend, let there be no need toreturn a second time to do the mowing, for you are as much crown-officeras I am, and, if I am king, you are grand master." Dampmartin executedthe king's orders without scruple; and at the season of harvest theFlemish country-places were devastated. "Little birds of heaven," criesthe Flemish chronicler Molinet, "ye who are wont to haunt our fields andrejoice our hearts with your amorous notes, now seek out other countries;get ye hence from our tillages, for the king of the mowers of France hathdone worse to us than do the tempests."

All the efforts of Louis XI., his winning speeches, and his ruinousdeeds, did not succeed in averting the serious check he dreaded. On the18th of August, 1477, seven months after the battle of Nancy and thedeath of Charles the Rash, Arch-duke Maximilian, son of the EmperorFrederick III., arrived at Ghent to wed Mary of Burgundy. "The moment hecaught sight of his betrothed," say the Flemish chroniclers, "they bothbent down to the ground and turned as pale as death--a sign of mutuallove according to some, an omen of unhappiness according to others."Next day, August 19, the marriage was celebrated with great simplicity inthe chapel of the Hotel de Ville; and Maximilian swore to respect theprivileges of Ghent. A few days afterwards he renewed the same oath atBruges, in the midst of decorations bearing the modest device, "Mostglorious prince, defend us lest we perish" (Gloriosissime princeps,defende nos ne pereamus). Not only did Louis XI. thus fail in his firstwise design of incorporating with France, by means of a marriage betweenhis son the _dauphin_ and Princess Mary, the heritage of the Dukes ofBurgundy, but he suffered the heiress and a great part of the heritageto pass into the hands of the son of the German emperor; and thereby hepaved the way for that determined rivalry between the houses of Franceand Austria, which was a source of so many dangers and woes to bothstates during three centuries. It is said that in 1745, when Louis XV.,after the battle of Fontenoy, entered Bruges cathedral, he remarked, ashe gazed on the tombs of the Austro-Burgundian princes, "There is theorigin of all our wars." In vain, when the marriage of Maximilian andMary was completed, did Louis XI. attempt to struggle against his new anddangerous neighbor; his campaigns in the Flemish provinces, in 1478 and1479, had no great result; he lost, on the 7th of August, 1479, thebattle of Guinegate, between St. Omer and Therouanne; and before long,tired of war, which was not his favorite theatre for the display of hisabilities, he ended by concluding with Maximilian a truce at first, andthen a peace, which in spite of some conditionals favorable to France,left the principal and the fatal consequences of the Austro-Burgundianmarriage to take full effect. This event marked the stoppage of thatgreat, national policy which had prevailed during the first part of LouisXI.'s reign. Joan of Arc and Charles VII. had driven the English fromFrance; and for sixteen years Louis XI. had, by fighting and graduallydestroying the great vassals who made alliance with them, prevented themfrom regaining a footing there. That was work as salutary as it wasglorious for the nation and the French kingship. At the death of Charlesthe Rash, the work was accomplished; Louis XI. was the only power left inFrance, without any great peril from without, and without any great rivalwithin; but he then fell under the sway of mistaken ideas and a viciousspirit. The infinite resources of his mind, the agreeableness of hisconversation, his perseverance combined with the pliancy of his will, theservices he was rendering France, the successes he in the long ruinfrequently obtained, and his ready apparent resignation under hisreverses, for a while made up for or palliated his faults, hisfalsehoods, his perfidies, his iniquities; but when evil is predominantat the bottom of a man's soul, he cannot do without youth and success;he cannot make head against age and decay, reverse of fortune and theapproach of death; and so Louis XI. when old in years, master-power stillthough beaten in his last game of policy, appeared to all as he reallywas and as he had been prediscerned to be by only such eminent observersas Commynes, that is, a crooked, swindling, utterly selfish, vindictive,cruel man. Not only did he hunt down implacably the men who, afterhaving served him, had betrayed or deserted him; he revelled in thevengeance he took and the sufferings he inflicted on them. He had raisedto the highest rank both in state and church the son of a cobbler, or,according to others, of a tailor, one John de Balue, born in 1421, at themarket-town of Angles, in Poitou. After having chosen him, as anintelligent and a clever young priest, for his secretary and almoner,Louis made him successively clerical councillor in the parliament ofParis, then Bishop of Evreux, and afterwards cardinal; and he employedhim in his most private affairs. It was a hobby of his thus to make thefortunes of men born in the lowest stations, hoping that, since theywould owe everything to him, they would never depend on any but him. Itis scarcely credible that so keen and contemptuous a judge of humannature could have reckoned on dependence as a pledge of fidelity. And inthis case Louis was, at any rate, mistaken; Balue was a traitor to him,and in 1468, at the very time of the incident at Peronne, he was secretlyin the service of Duke Charles of Burgundy, and betrayed to him theinterests and secrets of his master and benefactor. In 1469 Louisobtained material proof of the treachery; and he immediately had Baluearrested and put on his trial. The cardinal confessed everything, askingonly to see the king. Louis gave him an interview on the way fromAmboise to Notre-Dame de Clery; and they were observed, it is said,conversing for two hours, as they walked together on the road. The trialand condemnation of a cardinal by a civil tribunal was a serious businesswith the court of Rome. The king sent commissioners to Pope Paul II.:the pope complained of the procedure, but amicably and withoutpersistence. The cardinal was in prison at Loches; and Louis resolved toleave him there forever, without any more fuss. But at the same timethat, out of regard for the dignity of cardinal, which he had himselfrequested of the pope for the culprit, he dispensed with the legalcondemnation to capital punishment, he was bent upon satisfying hisvengeance, and upon making Balue suffer in person for his crime. Hetherefore had him confined in a cage, "eight feet broad," says Commynes,"and only one foot higher than a man's stature, covered with iron platesoutside and inside, and fitted with terrible bars." There is still to beseen in Loches castle, under the name of the Balue cage, that instrumentof prison-torture which the cardinal, it is said, himself invented. Init he passed eleven years, and it was not until 1480 that he was let out,at the solicitation of Pope Sixtus IV., to whom Louis XI., being old andill, thought he could not possibly refuse this favor. He remembered,perhaps, at that time how that, sixteen years before, in writing to hislieutenant-general in Poitou to hand over to Balue, Bishop of Evreux, theproperty of a certain abbey, he said, "He is a devilish good bishop justnow; I know not what he will be here-after."

[Illustration: The Balue Cage----245]

He was still more pitiless towards a man more formidable and lesssubordinate, both in character and origin, than Cardinal Balue. Louis ofLuxembourg, Count of St. Pol, had been from his youth up engaged in thewars and intrigues of the sovereigns and great feudal lords of WesternEurope--France, England, Germany, Burgundy, Brittany, and Lorraine. From1433 to 1475 he served and betrayed them all in turn, seeking andobtaining favors, incurring and braving rancor, at one time on one sideand at another time on another, acting as constable of France and asdiplomatic agent for the Duke of Burgundy, raising troops and takingtowns for Louis XI., for Charles the Rash, for Edward IV., for the Germanemperor, and trying nearly always to keep for himself what he had takenon another's account. The truth is, that he was constantly occupied withthe idea of making for himself an independent dominion, and becoming agreat sovereign. "He was," says Duclos, "powerful from his possessions,a great captain, more ambitious than politic, and, from his ingratitudeand his perfidies, worthy of his tragic end." His various patrons grewtired at last of being incessantly taken up with and then abandoned,served and then betrayed; and they mutually interchanged proofs of thedesertions and treasons to which they had been victims. In 1475 Louisof Luxembourg saw a storm threatening; and he made application for asafe-conduct to Charles the Rash, who had been the friend of his youth."Tell him," replied Charles to the messenger, "that he has forfeited hispaper and his hope as well;" and he gave orders to detain him. As soonas Louis XI. knew whither the constable had retired, he demanded of theDuke of Burgundy to give him up, as had been agreed between them. "Ihave need," said he, "for my heavy business, of a head like his;" and headded, with a ghastly smile, "it is only the head I want; the body maystay where it is." On the 24th of November, 1475, the constable was,accordingly, given up to the king; and on the 27th, was brought to Paris.His trial, begun forthwith, was soon over; he himself acknowledged thegreater part of what was imputed to him; and on the 19th of December hewas brought up from the Bastille before the parliament. "My lord of St.Pol," said the chancellor to him, "you have always passed for being thefirmest lord in the realm; you must not belie yourself to-day, when youhave more need than ever of firmness and courage;" and he read to him thedecree which sentenced him to lose his head that very day on the Place deGreve. "That is a mighty hard sentence," said the constable; "I pray Godthat I may see Him to-day." And he underwent execution with serene andpious firmness. He was of an epoch when the most criminal enterprisesdid not always preclude piety. Louis XI. did not look after theconstable's accomplices. "He flew at the heads," says Duclos, "and wasset on making great examples; he was convinced that noble blood, when itis guilty, should be shed rather than common blood. Nevertheless therewas considered to be something indecent in the cession by the king to theDuke of Burgundy of the constable's possessions. It seemed like theprice of the blood of an unhappy man, who, being rightfully sacrificedonly to justice and public tranquillity, appeared to be so to vengeance,ambition, and avarice."

In August, 1477, the battle of Nancy had been fought; Charles the Rashhad been killed; and the line of the Dukes of Burgundy had beenextinguished. Louis XI. remained master of the battle-field on which thegreat risks and great scenes of his life had been passed through. Itseemed as if he ought to fear nothing now, and that the day for clemencyhad come. But such was not the king's opinion; two cruel passions,suspicion and vengeance, had taken possession of his soul; he remainedconvinced, not without reason, that nearly all the great feudal lords whohad been his foes were continuing to conspire against him, and that heought not, on his side, ever to cease from striving against thorn. Thetrial of the constable, St. Pol, had confirmed all his suspicions; he haddiscovered thereby traces and almost proofs of a design for a long timepast conceived and pursued by the constable and his associates--thedesign of seizing the king, keeping him prisoner, and setting his son,the _dauphin_, on the throne, with a regency composed of a council oflords. Amongst the declared or presumed adherents of this project, theking had found James d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, the companion andfriend of his youth; for his father, the Count of Pardiac, had beengovernor to Louis, at that time _dauphin_. Louis, on becoming king, hadloaded James d'Armagnac with favors; had raised his countship of Nemoursto a duchy-peerage of France; had married him to Louise of Anjou,daughter of the Count of Maine and niece of King Rend. The new Duke ofNemours entered, nevertheless, into the League of Common Weal against theking. Having been included, in 1465, with the other chiefs of the leaguein the treaty of Conflans, and reconciled with the king, the Duke ofNemours made oath to him, in the Sainte-Chapelle, to always be to him agood, faithful, and loyal subject, and thereby obtained the governorshipof Paris and Ile-de-France. But, in 1469, he took part in the revolt ofhis cousin, Count John d'Armagnac, who was supposed to be incommunication with the English; and having been vanquished by the Countde Dampmartin, he had need of a fresh pardon from the king, which heobtained on renouncing the privileges of the peerage if he should offendagain. He then withdrew within his own domains, and there lived intranquillity and popularity, but still keeping up secret relations withhis old associates, especially with the Duke of Burgundy and theconstable of St. Pol. In 1476, during the Duke of Burgundy's firstcampaign against the Swiss, the more or less active participation of theDuke of Nemours with the king's enemies appeared to Louis so grave, thathe gave orders to his son-in-law, Peter of Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu, togo and besiege him in his castle of Carlat, in Auvergne. The Duke ofNemours was taken prisoner there and carried off to Vienne, in Dauphiny,where the king then happened to be. In spite of the prisoner'sentreaties, Louis absolutely refused to see him, and had him confined inthe tower of Pierre-Encise. The Duke of Nemours was so disquieted at hisposition and the king's wrath, that his wife, Louise of Anjou, who was inher confinement at Carlat, had a fit of terror and died there; and hehimself, shut up at Pierre-Encise, in a dark and damp dungeon, found hishair turn white in a few days. He was not mistaken about the gravity ofthe danger. Louis was both alarmed at these incessantly renewedconspiracies of the great lords and vexed at the futility of his pardons.He was determined to intimidate his enemies by a grand example, andavenge his kingly self-respect by bringing his power home to the ingrateswho made no account of his indulgence. He ordered that the Duke ofNemours should be removed from Pierre-Encise to Paris, and put in theBastille, where he arrived on the 4th of August, 1476, and thatcommissioners should set about his trial. The king complained of thegentleness with which the prisoner had been treated on arrival, and wroteto one of the commissioners, "It seems to me that you have but one thingto do; that is, to find out what guarantees the Duke of Nemours had giventhe constable of being at one with him in making the Duke of Burgundyregent, putting me to death, seizing my lord the _dauphin_, and takingthe authority and government of the realm. He must he made to speakclearly on this point, and must get hell (be put to the torture) in goodearnest. I am not pleased at what you tell me as to the irons havingbeen taken off his legs, as to his being let out from his cage, and as tohis being taken to the mass to which the women go. Whatever thechancellor or others may say, take care that he budge not from his cage,that he be never let out save to give him hell (torture him), and that hesuffer hell (torture) in his own chamber." The Duke of Nemours protestedagainst the choice of commissioners, and claimed, as a peer of the realm,his right to be tried by the parliament. When put to the torture heended by saying, "I wish to conceal nothing from the king; I will tellhim the truth as to all I know." "My most dread and sovereign lord," hehimself wrote to Louis, "I have been so misdoing towards you and towardsGod that I quite see that I am undone unless your grace and pity beextended to me; the which, accordingly, most humbly and in greatbitterness and contrition of heart, I do beseech you to bestow upon meliberally;" and he put the simple signature, "Poor James." "He confessedthat he had been cognizant of the constable's designs; but he added that,whilst thanking him for the kind offers made to himself, and whilsttestifying his desire that the lords might at last get their guarantees,he had declared what great obligations and great oaths he was under tothe king, against the which he would not go; he, moreover, had told theconstable he had no money at the moment to dispose of, no relative towhom he was inclined to trust himself or whom he could exert himself towin over, not even M. d'Albret, his cousin." In such confessions therewas enough to stop upright and fair judges from the infliction of capitalpunishment, but not enough to reassure and move the heart of Louis XI.On the chancellor's representations he consented to have the businesssent before the parliament; but the peers of the realm were not invitedto it. The king summoned the parliament to Noyon, to be nearer his ownresidence; and he ordered that the trial should be brought to aconclusion in that town, and that the original commissioners who hadcommenced proceedings, as well as thirteen other magistrates and officersof the king denoted by their posts, should sit with the lords of theparliament, and deliberate with them.

In spite of so many arbitrary precautions and violations of justice, thewill of Louis XI. met, even in a parliament thus distorted, with someresistance. Three of the commissioners added to the court abstained fromtaking any part in the proceedings; three of the councillors pronouncedagainst the penalty of death; and the king's own son-in-law, Sire deBeaujeu, who presided, confined himself to collecting the votes withoutdelivering an opinion, and to announcing the decision. It was to theeffect that "James d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, was guilty of hightreason, and, as such, deprived of all honors, dignities, andprerogatives, and sentenced to be beheaded and executed according tojustice." Furthermore the court declared all his possessions confiscatedand lapsed to the king. The sentence, determined upon at Noyon on the10th of July, 1477, was made known to the Duke of Nemours on the 4th ofAugust, in the Bastille, and carried out, the same day, in front of themarket-place. A disgusting detail, reproduced by several modern writers,has almost been received into history. Louis XI., it is said, orderedthe children of the Duke of Nemours to be placed under the scaffold, andbe sprinkled with their father's blood. None of his contemporaries, eventhe most hostile to Louis XI., and even amongst those who, at the states-general held in 1484, one of them after his death, raised their voicesagainst the trial of the Duke of Nemours, and in favor of his children,has made any mention of this pretended atrocity. Amongst the men whohave reigned and governed ably, Louis XI. is one of those who could bemost justly taxed with cruel indifference when cruelty might be useful tohim; but the more ground there is for severe judgment upon the chieftainsof nations, the stronger is the interdict against overstepping the limitjustified and authorized by facts.

The same rule of historical equity makes it incumbent upon us to remarkthat, in spite of his feelings of suspicion and revenge, Louis XI. couldperfectly well appreciate the men of honor in whom he was able to haveconfidence, and would actually confide in them even contrary to ordinaryprobabilities. He numbered amongst his most distinguished servantsthree men who had begun by serving his enemies, and whom he conquered,so to speak, by his penetration and his firm mental grasp of policy.The first was Philip of Chabannes, Count de Dampmartin, an able andfaithful military leader under Charles VII., so suspected by Louis XI.at his accession, that, when weary of living in apprehension andretirement he came, in 1463, and presented himself to the king, who wason his way to Bordeaux, "Ask you justice or mercy?" demanded Louis."Justice, sir," was the answer. "Very well, then," replied the king,"I banish you forever from the kingdom." And he issued an order to thateffect, at the same time giving Dampmartin a large sum to supply thewants of exile. It is credible that Louis already knew the worth of theman, and wished in this way to render their reconciliation more easy.Three years afterwards, in 1466, he restored to Dampmartin hispossessions together with express marks of royal favor, and twelve yearslater, in 1478, in spite of certain gusts of doubt and disquietude whichhad passed across his mind as to Dampmartin under circumstances criticalfor both of them, the king wrote to him, "Sir Grand Master, I havereceived your letters, and I do assure you, by the faith of my body,that I am right joyous that you provided so well for your affair atQuesnoy, for one would have said that you and the rest of the old oneswere no longer any good in an affair of war, and we and the rest of theyoung ones would have gotten the honor for ourselves. Search, I prayyou, to the very roots the case of those who would have betrayed us, andpunish them so well that they shall never do you harm. I have alwaystold you that you have no need to ask me for leave to go and do yourbusiness, for I am sure that you would not abandon mine without havingprovided for everything. Wherefore, I put myself in your hands, and youcan go away without leave. All goes well; and I am much better pleasedat your holding your own so well than if you had risked a loss of two toone. And so, farewell!" In 1465, another man of war, Odet d'Aydie,Lord of Lescun in Warn, had commanded at Montlhery the troops of theDukes of Berry and Brittany against Louis XI.; and, in 1469, the king,who had found means of making his acquaintance, and who "was wiser,"says Commynes, "in the conduct of such treaties than any other prince ofhis time," resolved to employ him in his difficult relations with hisbrother Charles, then Duke of Guienne, "promising him that he and hisservants, and he especially, should profit thereby." Three yearsafterwards, in 1472, Louis made Lescun Count of Comminges, "wherein heshowed good judgment," adds Commynes, "saying that no peril would comeof putting in his hands that which he did put, for never, during thosepast dissensions, had the said Lescun a mind to have any communicationwith the English, or to consent that the places of Normandy should behanded over to them;" and to the end of his life Louis XI. kept up theconfidence which Lescun had inspired by his judicious fidelity in thecase of this great question. There is no need to make any addition tothe name of Philip de Commynes, the most precious of the politicconquests made by Louis in the matter of eminent counsellors, to whom heremained as faithful as they were themselves faithful and useful to him.The _Memoires of Commynes_ are the most striking proof of the rare andunfettered political intellect placed by the future historian at theking's service, and of the estimation in which the king had wit enoughto hold it.

Louis XI. rendered to France, four centuries ago, during a reign oftwenty-two years, three great services, the traces and influence of whichexist to this day. He prosecuted steadily the work of Joan of Arc andCharles VII., the expulsion of a foreign kingship and the triumph ofnational independence and national dignity. By means of the provinceswhich he successively won, wholly or partly, Burgundy, Franche-Comte,Artois, Provence, Anjou, Roussillon, and Barrois, he caused France tomake a great stride towards territorial unity within her naturalboundaries. By the defeat he inflicted on the great vassals, the favorhe showed the middle classes, and the use he had the sense to make ofthis new social force, he contributed powerfully to the formation of theFrench nation, and to its unity under a national government. Feudalsociety had not an idea of how to form itself into a nation, ordiscipline its forces under one head; Louis XI. proved its politicalweakness, determined its fall, and labored to place in its stead Franceand monarchy. Herein are the great facts of his reign, and the proofs ofhis superior mind.

But side by side with these powerful symptoms of a new regimen appearedalso the vices of which that regimen contained the germ, and those of theman himself who was laboring to found it. Feudal society, perceivingitself to be threatened, at one time attacked Louis XI. with passion, atanother entered into violent disputes against him; and Louis, in order tostruggle with it, employed all the practices, at one time crafty and atanother violent, that belong to absolute power. Craft usuallypredominated in his proceedings, violence being often too perilousfor him to risk it; he did not consider himself in a condition to saybrazen-facedly, "Might before right;" but he disregarded right in thecase of his adversaries, and he did not deny himself any artifice, anylie, any baseness, however specious, in order to trick them or ruin themsecretly, when he did not feel himself in a position to crush them at ablow. "The end justifies the means"--that was his maxim; and the end,in his case, was sometimes a great and legitimate political object,nothing less than the dominant interest of France, but far more often hisown personal interest, something necessary to his own success or his owngratification. No loftiness, no greatness of soul, was natural to him;and the more experience of life he had, the more he became selfish anddevoid of moral sense and of sympathy with other men, whether rivals,tools, or subjects. All found out before long, not only how littleaccount he made of them, but also what cruel pleasure he sometimes tookin making them conscious of his disdain and his power. He was"familiar," but not by no means "vulgar;" he was in conversation able andagreeable, with a mixture, however, of petulance and indiscretion, evenwhen he was meditating some perfidy; and "there is much need," he used tosay, "that my tongue should sometimes serve me; it has hurt me oftenenough." The most puerile superstitions, as well as those most akin to ablind piety, found their way into his mind. When he received any badnews, he would cast aside forever the dress he was wearing when the newscame; and of death he had a dread which was carried to the extent ofpusillanimity and ridiculousness. "Whilst he was every day," says M. deBarante, "becoming more suspicious, more absolute, more terrible to hischildren, to the princes of the blood, to his old servants, and to hiswisest counsellors, there was one man who, without any fear of his wrath,treated him with brutal rudeness. This was James Cattier, his doctor.When the king would sometimes complain of it before certain confidentialservants, 'I know very well,' Cattier would say, that some fine morningyou'll send me where you've sent so many others; but, 'sdeath, you'll notlive a week after!'" Then the king would coax him, overwhelm him withcaresses, raise his salary to ten thousand crowns a month, make him apresent of rich lordships; and he ended by making him premier presidentof the Court of Exchequer. All churches and all sanctuaries of any smallcelebrity were recipients of his oblations, and it was not the salvationof his soul, but life and health, that he asked for in return. One daythere was being repeated, on his account and in his presence, an orisonto St. Eutropius, who was implored to grant health to the soul and healthto the body. "The latter will be enough," said the king; "it is notright to bother the saint for too many things at once." He showed greatdevotion for images which had received benediction, and often had one ofthem sewn upon his hat. Hawkers used to come and bring them to him; andone day he gave a hundred and sixty livres to a pedler who had in hispack one that had received benediction at Aix-la-Chapelle.

[Illustration: Louis XI. at his Devotions----255]

Whatever may have been, in the middle ages, the taste and the custom inrespect of such practices, they were regarded with less respect in thefifteenth than in the twelfth century, and many people scoffed at thetrust that Louis XI. placed in them, or doubted his sincerity.

Whether they were sincere or assumed, the superstitions of Louis XI. didnot prevent him from appreciating and promoting the progress ofcivilization, towards which the fifteenth century saw the first realgeneral impulse. He favored the free development of industry and trade;he protected printing, in its infancy, and scientific studies, especiallythe study of medicine; by his authorization, it is said, the operationfor the stone was tried, for the first time in France, upon a criminalunder sentence of death, who recovered, and was pardoned; and he welcomedthe philological scholars who were at this time laboring to diffusethrough Western Europe the works of Greek and Roman antiquity. Heinstituted, at first for his own and before long for the public service,post-horses and the letter-post within his kingdom. Towards intellectualand social movement he had not the mistrust and antipathy of an old,one-grooved, worn-out, unproductive despotism; his kingly despotism wasnew, and, one might almost say, innovational, for it sprang and wasgrowing up from the ruins of feudal rights and liberties which hadinevitably ended in monarchy. But despotism's good services areshort-lived; it has no need to last long before it generates iniquity andtyranny; and that of Louis XI., in the latter part of his reign, bore itsnatural, unavoidable fruits. "His mistrust," says M. de Barante, "becamehorrible, and almost insane; every year he had surrounded his castle ofPlessis with more walls, ditches, and rails. On the towers were ironsheds, a shelter from arrows, and even artillery. More than eighteenhundred of those planks bristling with nails, called caltrops, weredistributed over the yonder side of the ditch. There were every day fourhundred crossbow-men on duty, with orders to fire on whosoeverapproached. Every suspected passer-by was seized, and carried off toTristan l'Hermite, the provost-marshal. No great proofs were requiredfor a swing on the gibbet, or for the inside of a sack and a plunge inthe Loire. . . . Men who, like Sire de Commynes, had been the king'sservants, and who had lived in his confidence, had no doubt but that hehad committed cruelties and perpetrated the blackest treachery; stillthey asked themselves whether there had not been a necessity, and whetherhe had not, in the first instance, been the object of criminalmachinations against which he had to defend himself. . . . But,throughout the kingdom, the multitude of his subjects who had notreceived kindnesses from him, nor lived in familiarity with him, norknown of the ability displayed in his plans, nor enjoyed the wit of hisconversation, judged only by that which came out before their eyes; theimposts had been made much heavier, without any consent on the part ofthe states-general; the talliages, which under Charles VII. brought inonly eighteen hundred thousand livres, rose, under Louis XI., tothirty-seven hundred thousand; the kingdom was ruined, and the peoplewere at the last extremity of misery; the prisons were full; none wassecure of life or property; the greatest in the land, and even theprinces of the blood, were not safe in their own houses.

An unexpected event occurred at this time to give a little more heart toLouis XI., who was now very ill, and to mingle with his gloomy broodingsa gleam of future prospects. Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles theRash, died at Bruges on the 27th of March, 1482, leaving to her husband,Maximilian of Austria, a daughter, hardly three years of age, PrincessMarguerite by name, heiress to the Burgundian-Flemish dominions which hadnot come into the possession of the King of France. Louis, as soon as heheard the news, conceived the idea and the hope of making up for thereverse he had experienced five years previously through the marriage ofMary of Burgundy. He would arrange espousals between his son, the_dauphin_, Charles, thirteen years old, and the infant princess left byMary, and thus recover for the crown of France the beautiful domains hehad allowed to slip from him. A negotiation was opened at once on thesubject between Louis, Maximilian, and the estates of Flanders, and, onthe 23d of December, 1482, it resulted in a treaty, concluded at Arras,which arranged for the marriage, and regulated the mutual conditions. InJanuary, 1483, the ambassadors from the estates of Flanders and fromMaximilian, who then for the first time assumed the title of archduke,came to France for the ratification of the treaty. Having been firstreceived with great marks of satisfaction at Paris, they repaired toPlessis-les-Tours. Great was their surprise at seeing this melancholyabode, this sort of prison, into which "there was no admittance saveafter so many formalities and precautions." When they had waited awhile, they were introduced, in the evening, into a room badly lighted.In a dark corner was the king, seated in an arm-chair. They movedtowards him; and then, in a weak and trembling voice, but still, as itseemed, in a bantering tone, Louis asked pardon of the Abbot of St.Peter of Ghent and of the other ambassadors for not being able to riseand greet them. After having heard what they had to say, and having helda short conversation with them, he sent for the Gospels for to make oath.He excused himself for being obliged to take the holy volume in his lefthand, for his right was paralyzed and his arm supported in a sling.Then, holding the volume of the Gospels, he raised it up painfully, andplacing upon it the elbow of his right arm, he made oath. Thus appearedin the eyes of the Flemings that king who had done them so much harm, andwho was obtaining of them so good a treaty by the fear with which heinspired them, all dying as he was.

On the 2d of June following, the infant princess, Marguerite of Austria,was brought by a solemn embassy to Paris first, and then, on the 23d ofJune, to Amboise, where her betrothal to the _dauphin_, Charles, wascelebrated. Louis XI. did not feel fit for removal to Amboise; and hewould not even receive at Plessis-les-Tours the new Flemish embassy.Assuredly neither the king nor any of the actors in this regal sceneforesaw that this marriage, which they with reason looked upon as atriumph of French policy, would never be consummated; that, at therequest of the court of France, the pope would annul the betrothal; andthat, nine years after its celebration, in 1492, the Austrian princess,after having been brought up at Amboise under the guardianship of theDuchess of Bourbon, Anne, eldest daughter of Louis XI., would be sentback to her father, Emperor Maximilian, by her affianced, Charles VIII.,then King of France, who preferred to become the husband of a Frenchprincess with a French province for dowry, Anne, Duchess of Brittany.

[Illustration: Views of the Castle of Plessis-les-Tours----258]

It was in March, 1481, that Louis XI. had his first attack of thatapoplexy, which, after several repeated strokes, reduced him to such astate of weakness that in June, 1483, he felt himself and declaredhimself not in a fit state to be present at his son's betrothal. Twomonths afterwards, on the 25th of August, St. Louis's day, he had a freshstroke, and lost all consciousness and speech. He soon recovered them;but remained so weak that he could not raise his hand to his mouth, and,under the conviction that he was a dead man, he sent for his son-in-law,Peter of Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu; and "Go," said he, "to Amboise, to theking, my son; I have intrusted him as well as the government of thekingdom to your charge and my daughter's care. You know all I haveenjoined upon him; watch and see that it be observed. Let him show favorand confidence towards those who have done me good service and whom Ihave named to him. You know, too, of whom he should beware, and who mustnot be suffered to come near him." He sent for the chancellor fromParis, and bade him go and take the seals to the king. "Go to the king,"he said to the captains of his guards, to his archers, to his huntsmen,to all his household. "His speech never failed him after it had comeback to him," says Commynes, "nor his senses; he was constantly sayingsomething of great sense and never in all his illness, which lasted fromMonday to Saturday evening, did he complain, as do all sorts of folkwhen they feel ill. . . . "Notwithstanding all those commands herecovered heart," adds Commynes, "and had good hope of escaping." Inconversation at odd times with some of his servants, and even withCommynes himself, he had begged them, whenever they saw that he was veryill, not to mention that cruel word death; he had even made a covenantwith them, that they should say no more to him than, "Don't talk much,"which would be sufficient warning. But his doctor, James Coettier, andhis barber, Oliver the Devil, whom he had ennobled and enriched underthe name of Oliver le Daim, did not treat him with so much indulgence."They notified his death to him in brief and harsh terms," saysCommynes; "'Sir, we must do our duty; have no longer hope in your holyman of Calabria or in other matters, for assuredly all is over with you;think of your soul; there is no help for it.' 'I have hope in God thatHe will aid me,' answered Louis, coldly; 'peradventure I am not so illas you think.'

"He endured with manly virtue so cruel a sentence," says Commynes, "andeverything, even to death, more than any man I ever saw die; he spoke ascoolly as if he had never been ill." He gave minute orders about hisfuneral, sepulchre, and tomb. He would be laid at Notre-Dame de Clery,and not, like his ancestors, at St. Denis; his statue was to be giltbronze, kneeling, face to the altar, head uncovered, and hands claspedwithin his hat, as was his ordinary custom. Not having died on thebattle-field and sword in hand, he would be dressed in hunting-garb,with jack-boots, a hunting-horn, slung over his shoulder, his houndlying beside him, his order of St. Michael round his neck, and his swordat his side. As to the likeness, he asked to be represented, not as hewas in his latter days, bald, bow-backed, and wasted, but as he was inhis youth and in the vigor of his age, face pretty full, nose aquiline,hair long, and falling down behind to his shoulders. After having takenall these pains about himself after his death, he gave his chiefremaining thoughts to France and his son. "Orders must be sent," saidhe, "to M. d'Esquerdes [Philip de Crevecoeur, Baron d'Esquerdes, adistinguished warrior, who, after the death of Charles the Rash, had,through the agency of Commynes, gone over to the service of Louis XI.,and was in command of his army] to attempt no doings as to Calais. Wehad thought to drive out the English from this the last corner they holdin the kingdom; but such matters are too weighty; all that business endswith me. M. d'Esquerdes must give up such designs, and come and guardmy son without budging from his side for at least six months. Let anend be put, also, to all our disputes with Brittany, and let this DukeFrancis be allowed to live in peace without any more causing him troubleor fear. This is the way in which we, must now deal with all ourneighbors. Five or six good years of peace are needful for the kingdom.My poor people have suffered too much; they are in great desolation. IfGod had been pleased to grant me life, I should have put it all torights; it was my thought and my desire, let my son be strictly chargedto remain at peace, especially whilst he is so young. At a later time,when he is older, and when the kingdom is in good case, he shall do ashe pleases about it."

[Illustration: Louis XI----260]

On Saturday, August 30, 1483, between seven and eight in the evening,Louis XI. expired, saying, "Our Lady of Embrun, my good mistress, havepity upon me; the mercies of the Lord will I sing forever (misericordiasDomini in ceternum cantabo)."

"It was a great cause of joy throughout the kingdom," says M. de Barantewith truth, in his _Histoire des Dues de Bourgogne_: "this moment hadbeen impatiently waited for as a deliverance, and as the ending of somany woes and fears. For a long time past no King of France had been soheavy on his people or so hated by them."

This was certainly just, and at the same time ungrateful.

Louis XI. had rendered France great service, but in a manner void offrankness, dignity, or lustre; he had made the contemporary generationpay dearly for it by reason of the spectacle he presented of trickery,perfidy, and vindictive cruelty, and by his arbitrary and tyrannicalexercise of kingly power. People are not content to have useful service;they must admire or love; and Louis XI. inspired France with neither ofthose sentiments. He has had the good fortune to be described andappraised, in his own day too, by the most distinguished and independentof his councillors, Philip de Commynes, and, three centuries afterwards,by one of the most thoughtful and the soundest intellects amongst thephilosophers of the eighteenth century, Duclos, who, moreover, had theadvantage of being historiographer of France, and of having studied thehistory of that reign in authentic documents. We reproduce here the twojudgments, the agreement of which is remarkable:--

"God," says Commynes, "had created our king more wise, liberal, and fullof manly virtue than the princes who reigned with him and in his day, andwho were his enemies and neighbors. In all there was good and evil, forthey were men; but without flattery, in him were more things appertainingto the office of king than in any of the rest. I saw them nearly all,and knew what they could do."

"Louis XI.," says Duclos, "was far from being without reproach; fewprinces have deserved so much; but it may be said that he was equallycelebrated for his vices and his virtues, and that, everything being putin the balance, he was a king."

We will be more exacting than Commynes and Duclos; we will not consent toapply to Louis XI. the words liberal, virtuous, and virtue; he had norgreatness of soul, nor uprightness of character, nor kindness of heart;he was neither a great king nor a good king; but we may assent to Duclos'last word--he was a king.